City of Livermore recognizes Data Privacy Week

The city of Livermore has registered as a champion of data privacy and online safety as part of its commitment to Data Privacy Week. 

Data Privacy Week takes place annually from Jan. 24-28 in order to raise awareness on the importance of privacy and protection of personal information for businesses and organizations. As a part of this effort, Livermore is encouraging the community to learn more about how to manage and protect online data. 

The National Cybersecurity Alliance has offered the following tips:

• For individuals:
  • Understand the privacy/convenience tradeoff: Many accounts ask for access to personal information, such as your geographic location, contacts list, and photo album, before you use their services. Make informed decisions about whether or not to share your data with certain businesses by considering the amount of personal information they are asking for and weighing it against the benefits you may receive in return.
  • Manage your privacy: Once you have decided to use an app or set up a new account, check the privacy and security settings and set them to your comfort level for information sharing. Each device, application or browser you use will have different features to limit how and with whom you share information.
    • Protect your data: Data privacy and data security go hand in hand. Keep your data secure by creating long unique passwords and storing them in a password manager. Add another layer of security by enabling multi-factor authentication wherever possible.

• For businesses:
  • Conduct an assessment: Conduct an assessment of your data collection practices and understand which privacy laws and regulations apply to your business. Follow reasonable security measures to keep individuals’ personal information safe from inappropriate and unauthorized access and make sure the personal data you collect is processed in a fair manner and only collected for relevant and legitimate purposes.
    • Don’t forget to maintain oversight of partners and vendors as well. If someone provides services on your behalf, you are also responsible for how they collect and use your consumers’ personal information.
  • Adopt a privacy framework: Researching and adopting a privacy framework can help you manage risk and create a culture of privacy in your organization by building privacy into your business.
  • Educate employees: Create a culture of privacy in your organization by educating your employees of their and your organization’s obligations to protecting personal information. Teach employees how to update their privacy and security settings on work and personal accounts. 

More information:

• Data Privacy Week 2022: staysafeonline.org/data-privacy-week/.
• Cyber Safe Livermore Initiative: cityoflivermore.net/government/administrativeservices/cybersecurity/initiative
• Livermore’s Cyber Safety Mobile App: cityoflivermore.net/government/administrativeservices/cybersecurity/about-mobile-app