This guide provides resources and information about data privacy.

What is privacy?

"In general, privacy in the United States is defined as information, territory, space, or possessions that people believe they have the right to own and over which they exercise control" (from Credo Reference: Privacy). Privacy is also defined as the "right to be let alone" (from THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY: Foundations of a Constitutional Debate).

Associated term(s): Rights of privacy, Tort, self-ownership (or bodily privacy, or bodily autonomy), the fourth amendment (or spatial privacy or territorial privacy) , communications privacy

Important figure(s): Samuel Warren, Louis Brandeis, William Brennan

What is data privacy?

Data privacy, like privacy in general, has many definitions under different contexts. For instance, data privacy can mean "the requirement that data is only to be accessed by, or disclosed to, authorised persons" (from Credo Reference: data protection). We can also use the above definitions of privacy to come up with our own definition of data privacy: data privacy is your right to control and own your data.

Associated term(s): data protection, information privacy, internet privacy

What is personal data?

Personal data is "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person" (from the General Data Protection Regulation). In other words, your personal data is any information related to you.

Associated term(s): personal information, personal identifiable information, personally identifying information

What is big data?

Big data "can refer both to the very large size of the data sets being analyzed, and to the prominence of statistical techniques designed to extract new, valuable insights from that data" (from Credo Reference: Big Data). 

Big data is also a "term used to describe the large data sets which exponential growth in the amount and availability of data have allowed organizations to collect. Big data has been articulated as “the three V’s: volume (the amount of data), velocity (the speed at which data may now be collected and analyzed), and variety (the format, structured or unstructured, and type of data, e.g. transactional or behavioral)." (from The International Association of Privacy Professionals' Glossary of Privacy Terms).

Associated term(s): metadata

* Based on the Olympic College Library. Protect Your Data Privacy: A How To Guide