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Privacy Tip #175 – Data Privacy Day

Privacy Tip #175 – Data Privacy Day
Thursday, January 31, 2019

Ok it’s not as great as your birthday, but it comes once a year—Data Privacy Day, which was celebrated worldwide this week on January 28, 2019.

In honor of Data Privacy Day 2019, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) published a map of the world showing which countries protect the online privacy rights of its citizens—called Global Cyberlaw Tracker.

The Tracker is touted as the first global map of cyberlaws that tracks e-commerce legislation around the world on consumer protection, data privacy and protection, cybercrime and e-transactions. The statistics in the Tracker are really interesting. Shockingly to some, only 58 percent of all countries in the world have privacy legislation in place; 10 percent have pending legislation; 21 percent have no legislation (and therefore, no protections); and 12 percent have no data to protect. For instance, Venezuela, Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan have no legislation; Iraq and Brazil have pending legislation, and Mongolia, Saudi Arabia and Mozambique claim they have no data.

It is easy and quite interesting to navigate. It also helps with refreshing your memory of world geography, and at least for me, made me grateful for the legislation we have in the U.S. to protect our privacy, imperfect though it may be.

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