Data Privacy Day is an annual international event held each year on January 28th since 2008 and instituted to promote awareness about the many ways personal information is collected, stored, used, and shared, and provide education about privacy practices that will enable individuals to protect their personal information. It has many champions who partner with the National Cyber Security Alliance by educating their customers, citizens, employees and communities through events, activities and other methods. Brown is proud to be one of those champions.

ISG presented the colloquium Perspectives on Privacy: Rights, the Law & the University, on January 28th, 2013 in observance of International Data Privacy Day. The afternoon event featured talks by privacy expert and local author Robert Ellis Smith, RISD's General Counsel Steve McDonald, Brown's Chief Information Security Officer, David Sherry, and a time for Q&A with a panel of our speakers. More details at brown.edu/go/dpd2013.

EDUCAUSE (advocate for excellence in academic IT) expanded upon International Data Privacy Day to highlight the issue of privacy throughout January, selecting the following Data Privacy Month weekly themes for the higher education community to focus on (see below).

In conjunction with the focus on privacy during the month of January, ISG offered the class "Protecting Brown's Information" on January 16, which covered what constitutes confidential information; where, when and how it's at risk; and what can be done to mitigate that risk. ISG also provided privacy tips throughout the month on Twitter at ISG@Brown.

2013 Data Privacy Month Themes (EDUCAUSE)

Week 1 (Jan. 7-11): Privacy and Your Mobile Devices EDUCAUSE Live! webinar: Are You Smarter Than Your Phone? Wednesday, January 9, 1-2 PM with Rebecca Herold, the Privacy Professor Nearly everyone on a college campus today has a mobile phone, but how should you make use of your smartphone? You are smarter than your phone if you use sound judgment about revealing your location. You're smarter than your phone if you know you need to think critically about the sensitivity of the data you put on or access through your phone. You are smarter than your phone if you protect it with a password. If you're not thinking critically about what you do with your phone, we'll help you think again! » View archived event + Summary of 16 tips to mitigate smartphone risk + More mobile safety tips

Week 2 (Jan. 14-18): Privacy and Institutional Data IAM webinar: Scalable Privacy: An NSTIC Grant for the Identity Ecosystem Wednesday, January 16, 1-2 PM with Ken Klingenstein (Director, Middleware Initiative, Internet2) The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently announced more than $9 million in grant awards to support the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). Five U.S. organizations will pilot identity solutions that increase confidence in online transactions, prevent identity theft, and provide individuals with more control over how they share their personal information. Learn more about Internet2 and InCommon's partnership with Carnegie Mellon, Brown, the University of Texas, MIT, and the University of Utah to build a consistent and robust privacy infrastructure for the higher ed community. » View archived event + Handling Institutional Data video + ISG's "Protect Your Data" site (includes links to policies, procedures and regulations)

Week 3 (Jan. 21-25): Privacy in the Cloud - What's Going On Up There? Significant amounts of data, including sensitive information, are kept in the cloud both on behalf of institutions, and at the direction of individual users. Although storing business records, personal documents, and pictures on hosted web sites may seem like second nature, there is a large gap between what we do, and our understanding of how our data and actions are safeguarded. + Using Dropbox at Brown + 7 Things You Should Know About Cloud Security + 7 Things You Should Know About Privacy in Web 2.0 Learning Environment

Week 4 (Jan. 28-Feb. 1): Privacy and Higher Education EDUCAUSE Policy webinar: Privacy Officers Around the Virtual Water Cooler Wednesday, January 30, 1-2 PM with host Merri Beth Lavagnino (Chief Privacy Officer & Compliance Officer, Indiana University), Kent Wada (Chief Privacy Officer & Director, Strategic IT Policy, UCLA) and Jane Rosenthal (Director, Privacy Office, University of Kansas) Join this conversational webinar and find out how three higher education Chief Privacy Officers (CPOs) are addressing current privacy challenges on campus. » View webinar slides and archived event + Privacy in an Era of Social Media (danah boyd podcast) + Pardon Me, But Your Life is Showing

Related Resources

About Data Privacy Day (StaySafeOnline)
Data Privacy: NCSA (Facebook)