Data Privacy and Security: What’s the Difference?

Information has always been a form of currency in society—from buying favors to building connections and generating financial gain.

Businesses rely on information; now more than ever. The more data you have from your consumers, the more you can offer, customize, and sell. In short, data helps your bottom line.

But, with consumer data comes data responsibility. This responsibility requires you to manage consumer data in line with data privacy and security regulations. These laws and regulations require you to collect, store, manage, and use personal data responsibly and securely.

Yes, that means you must both protect it from threats and store and process it according to the data subject’s wishes.

If you fail to comply with consumers’ data rights or are found to not have taken appropriate security measures, you can face legal repercussions. Plus, it’s not just a data privacy compliance issue; your reputation determines whether consumers trust you with their information or not.

So, what exactly are data privacy and security? How are they different, and what makes them similar?

Let’s find out.

We’ve discussed how data security and privacy differ in this older post, but let’s quickly recap.

What Is Data Privacy?

To understand data privacy, let’s use an analogy:

Imagine you ask a friend if you can crash in their guest room for an unspecified amount of time.

It’s their home, so they want some information before agreeing. Why do you need a place to crash? How long will you stay? What’s your plan for the future?

You give them these details, and they agree to let you stay (they’re a good friend, after all), but only if you respect some ground rules. For example, you can’t bring friends over and party in their house. You can’t share their personal space with people they didn’t agree to let in. You have to lock the front door when you go out because security is important.

They also don’t want you to make any changes to their space. You can’t paint the walls a different color because you don’t like the vibe. They might check in on the room from time to time to see what you’ve been doing with it.

Finally, your friend reserves the right to revoke their permission for you to stay at any point for whatever reason. For example, they could tell you to leave if you break one of the rules; their sister makes an impromptu visit, and they really want her to stay; or they just want their personal space back.

Enough Analogies. Back to Data Privacy.

Just like their personal space, an individual’s personal information requires careful and mindful handling. They may share it with you, but you have to respect it and not take it for granted. You also must follow their wishes on how you use it.

Data privacy deals with what consumer information you need, why you need it, how you handle that information, what rights consumers retain over that information, and who can access it.

Even though your organization stores it, the data belongs to the consumer who gave it to you.

They must be told that you’re collecting their personal information and why. In some cases, they must agree to let you collect their data (i.e., give affirmative or opt-in consent). In others, you only need to inform them of the collection and give them the choice to opt out of that collection (known as implicit or opt-out consent).

Since it’s theirs, they should be able to view and verify that the data is accurate and up to date and amend it if it’s not. If they ask you to, you must delete their personal information from your system.

They should know who you’re sharing the information with. If they don’t want you to share that data, then you must stop sharing or selling it. It’s important that their personal data is kept confidential and only available to those authorized to see it.

In short, data privacy is how your business protects the rights of consumers when it comes to their personal information.

Why Is It Important?

Data privacy laws govern how you deal with consumer data, and violating those laws can result in hefty fines. However, as a business, you should protect your audience’s personal information because it’s the right thing to do. Consumer personal information often includes data such as:

• Financial details, such as social security numbers, bank account details, transaction histories, etc.
• Personal health information (PHI)
• Dates of birth
• Addresses
• And more

This information is private and should be treated as such. Data privacy protections ensure that it’s only accessible to the people who need it and that those people handle it in an ethical way. Having them in place tells your consumers they can trust you with their information.

If you don’t have adequate protection, you’ll find more and more users opting out of giving you their data. That’s if you don’t lose their business altogether.

That’s not the worst of it; if you’re found to have been mishandling consumer data, or if there’s a data breach that could have been prevented, you will be fined.

In short, data privacy is important because it’s the right thing to do, it helps you instill trust in your consumers, and it keeps you compliant.

What Is Data Security?

So, you’ve determined what information you need from your customers and got their consent to process it.

But how will you safeguard it? How will you prevent the wrong people from viewing and misusing it? If someone does try to steal it, do you have a way of detecting this attempt and blocking it?

Remember how your friend wanted you to lock the door? And, how they didn’t want you letting strangers in?

That’s what data security focuses on. The aim of data security is to protect consumers’ personal data from cyberattacks, data breaches, and unintended access.

Why Is It Important?

According to TechCrunch, there have been over 1 billion records stolen through data breaches in 2024, and the number continues to rise. A report from IBM states that the cost of data breaches in the US this year has been $4.88 million.

Investing in security can help you avoid the penalties associated with a data breach, but it can also help protect you from penalties associated with data privacy non-compliance. Data breaches can reveal that the organization handled consumer data in a non-compliant way, such as failing to secure appropriate consent to collect data or failing to provide adequate protection. Not only do businesses suffer the direct costs associated with a data breach, but data privacy authorities can levy hefty fines for non-compliance.

How hefty?

The CCPA can impose a fine of $7,500 per violation and, under certain circumstances, allows consumers to sue the business for the amount of monetary damage they suffered or statutory damages of up to $750 per incident.

This year, the FTC imposed a penalty of $2.95 million on Verkada, a cloud-based building security solutions provider, for data security and CAN-SPAM violations. Note that this penalty was applied after a data breach revealed Verkada’s numerous security failures.

Data security is necessary to keep your business data confidential, unaltered, and available. You’ve stored this information because you need it. Security is what keeps it safe, protected, and usable.

You also have a reputation to protect. If your business can’t secure the information of your customers, why would they want to share it with you?