In this hyperconnected world we generate data everyday, and anyone who has access to it can be a threat to our privacy and security. Even the government.

According to Digital Quality of Life research, in 2018 more than 13 thousand authentic data breaches and 14.8 billion raw identity records flowing on the internet were discovered.

Setting legal regulations becomes a crucial part of laying the foundation of our well-being online. Legal regulations outlines what happens to our data, where it should be stored, managed, protected and who is responsible and legally accountable for it.

With the beginning of 2017 countries have started to take their citizens data security seriously and imposing data protection laws such as famous EU law — GDPR. 62 countries out of 65 analyzed in the Digital quality of life research has some sort of personal data protection law or at least has drafts to make it happen. Everything looks promising, but where is the problem?

Government Surveillance

The problem is that governments under legal regulations controls our data. For some it might sound secure, but for the expert panel at DQL research it sounds like a way for the government to surveillance their citizens. And in some countries this is actually the case. Basically, if a country has a data protection law, that doesn’t mean that citizens data is secure. Anyone owning your data, even the government, can pose a huge threat.

According to the 2019 Forrester Global Map of Privacy Rights and Regulations:

“Regulations that allow governments to access personal data of citizens are still undermining the overall privacy protections that certain countries offer their citizens.”

Such countries as India and China encounter huge government surveillance, and there are minimal laws that actually monitor the government itself. The government should be there to protect us, but who guards them to do the right thing?

“It (government surveillance) is a worldwide phenomenon that cuts across geographies, economic development, societal well-being, and institutional design, with alarming levels of government surveillance in countries such as Austria, Colombia, India, Kuwait and the UK,” — Forrester report

The Case Of Australia

Another issue arises from the question — is government capable of securing our data? We hear how companies such as Facebook encounter data breaches, what makes our government different?

Let’s look at Australia case. Based on Digital Quality of Life research Australia has an overall biggest DQL index, which consists of things such as cost of the internet, content availability, e-governance availability, global cybersecurity index and etc. Although Australia received a high score on data protection laws, recent backdoor encryption law might cause huge threats to businesses and people in the future and this law might be the cause of lower digital quality of life in the end.

The law makes all the companies put backdoor to their encrypted technologies, which will create security vulnerabilities and put citizens in danger of criminals getting their data.

Another problem in Australia is the lack of skilled cybersecurity experts which makes us worry if the white hat hackers of Australia will be able to secure us from the black hat hackers? Australians basically are giving their information into hands that are not that good at guarding it.

Talking about white and black hat hackers, another threat arises — how should we know who is who. How should we know that white hackers don’t go to the dark side. And these worries do not come from nothing. Some of you might remember a famous hacker who actually comes from Australia — Julian Assange. He started off his career as an ethical (in oder word white hat) hacker, but later he pleaded guilty to 25 charges and created WikiLeaks. We couldn’t put on a specific colour hat on him, but it is definitely not white.

The white hat guys are given access to all of our data, they are testing the vulnerabilities of the systems that should protect us, but how can we trust them and know what type of hat are they wearing? There are many cases when white hats becomes black ones and the reason is unknown. But one thing that is certain is that these guys who should guard our data needs to be guarded themselves.

Sometimes it seems that all of us are fighting a losing game of protecting our data, but we cannot go back to the way it was before the internet. One thing is clear — someone needs to guard the guards.

Digital Quality of Life research (DQL): https://surfshark.com/dql-report.pdf

Forrester report 2019: https://www.forrester.com/report/Forresters+Global+Map+Of+Privacy+Rights+And+Regulations+2019/-/E-RES141638