Privacy Awareness Week

The world we live in is a very different one from a decade ago. Back then, many cell phones were still the size of a shoe box, and so-called “smartphones” were barely a theory. The internet was restricted to our desktop computers, not our wireless phones, tablets, and cars. GPS devices and turn-by-turn directions were a newfangled thing that most hadn’t even heard of yet.

This week marks the 10th Anniversary of the first-ever Privacy Awareness Week in 2002.  To commemorate that anniversary and recognize the growing importance of privacy protection in today’s high-tech world, this is the first in a weeklong series of columns devoted to privacy protection issues such as financial privacy, medical privacy, advice from experts on avoiding identity theft, workplace privacy questions like whether employers have a right to demand access and passwords to an employee’s social media sites like Facebook, and protection of education data.

These days, many people’s day-to-day lives have been transformed by their always-connected devices. The internet in our pocket has given us the ability to download a song or make edits to an important work presentation, but how has all this technology impacted our ability to protect our private data?

Protecting private information has never been more important — or more challenging — than it is right now. Those technological advances that bring benefits also bring additional threats to the privacy of financial, medical, and personal data, not to mention our children’s privacy and protection. 

Many people don’t worry about privacy concerns until their private data is stolen. For those who perhaps don’t think this is an issue, consider this: in the last year alone, over 100,000 Minnesotans were ripped off in sophisticated online and telephone scams, to the tune of over $5 million in losses. That includes several people right here in Inver Grove Heights. According to the Federal Trade Commission, 9 million Americans are victims of identity theft each year, nearly 25,000 people a day. In recent weeks, LinkedIn, Yahoo! and Dropbox announced that hackers had stolen millions of passwords. And it seems that every month, we read about a smartphone app that is breaking the rules and giving your location to advertisers, or looking at your contact list.

Clearly, protection of private information is an issue that deserves our attention.

In terms of future legislative action, Rep. Mary Liz Holberg (R – Lakeville) asked me recently if I would be willing to help form a bipartisan group of legislators to better protect Minnesotans’ private data. Rep. Holberg is the Minnesota House’s foremost expert on protecting private data, and we have worked on privacy protection legislation in years past. I’m looking forward to working with her on this important issue. 

I hope you find the upcoming columns helpful and informative. As always, I welcome comments on this issue, either by posting below, emailing me at Rep.Joe.Atkins@house.mn, weighing in on my surveys at www.facebook.com/State.Rep.Joe.Atkins, or by giving me a call at the Capitol at 296-4192.