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Don’t Mix the Two Up: What Is the Difference Between Privacy & Security?

Knowing that a tomato is a fruit is knowledge – not adding it to a fruit salad is wisdom. Similarly, having knowledge about privacy and security is good, but true wisdom is knowing that they are vastly different from each other. While both, to some extent, revolve around the protection of your personal, public and corporate data, they are still not the same.

The TL;DR version is yes. To put it simply, privacy means taking steps to keep your data away from the reach of unauthorized individuals. Security means keeping your data protected against illegal attempts to access or corrupt it.

What Do We Know About Privacy?

We will be discussing privacy first because it is more fragile and vulnerable than security.

Privacy, AKA secrecy, is the fundamental right of every human. Of course, you don’t want anyone peeping into your life without your consent. You surely never want anyone monitoring your activities online or offline.

What is personal to you should forever remain exclusive for your eyes or use only. However, at times, it isn’t limited to your private life anymore, especially when your job is to keep the confidentiality of other people’s personal information. Take, for instance, government agents or bank accountants, to name a few. (More on it under Public Privacy)

All in all, privacy is all about having the sole authority over your personal information and how you want to control it. We can further breakdown privacy into:

Personal Privacy

As the name suggests, everything that falls under the “sensitive” umbrella is your personal privacy. For instance, your credit card details, contact number, email accounts, and bank credentials and Social Security Number, to name a few.

Public Privacy

Public privacy is something that isn’t limited to your privacy. On the contrary, you are liable for the (Read more...)