Every time we buy something online, download an app to our phones or donate to a charity, we are giving away personal information that is of value. It's of value to commercial organisations, marketers, charities and non-governmental organisations, governments themselves, a huge range of institutions, large and small.
And if you’re not quite sure how valuable that information is and why you should be, at the very least, aware of its value, consider these words from data protection lawyer, Linda NíChualladh, speaking on Today with Sean O’Rourke this morning.
“Your right to have your data protected is a fundamental right. This data, it isn’t just numbers, it isn’t just letters, it isn’t just code. Data is bits of you. It’s all about you. It’s about what you like doing, what your pizza topping preferences are, who you support, who you don’t support, who your friends are.”
The law that governs what happens to this information is out of date and a new EU law will come into force next year that will radically change the way personal information is handled by organisations. And during the interview, Linda outlined the basic principles underpinning existing data protection law.
“Anybody who has your information has an obligation to make sure your data is safe and secure. It is used only in the way you said, and agreed to have it used.”
All data protection legislation, including the new legislation, is of particular interest to charities, as they will have to face exactly the same data protection issues as commercial businesses and they will not receive special treatment under the new law.
To speak about these obligations, Sean and Linda were also joined by Mike Mansfield, Head of Communications and Fundraising with Jigsaw, The National Centre for Youth Mental Health.
Donors to charities will be entitled to expect the same level of service, safety and security with the treatment of their data as they would from a financial institution, educational organisation or a multinational. On top of this, charities will be under extra scrutiny as, in some cases, they hold so much more personal data than an average business.
To further understanding of the law in the charity sector, the Charities Institute of Ireland will hold its first leadership conference entitled The Naked Truth: Trust and Transparency and the Leadership Challenge at the Irish Film Institute in Dublin 2 tomorrow.
And if you have any personal concerns about your own data protection, you can consult the website of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.
To listen to the full interview with Linda and Mike, click here.
Photo Credit: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images