• All

• CIPM

• CIPP/C

• CIPP/E

• CIPP/US

• CIPT

• A

• B

• C

• D

• E

• F

• G

• H

• I

• J
• K

• L

• M

• N

• O

• P

• Q

• R

• S

• T

• U

• V

• W

fullscreen_exitCOLLAPSE ALL

• remove

Abstract

Limit the amount of detail in which personal information is processed.

Return to top

• add

Access Control Entry

An element in an access control list (ACL). Each ACE controls, monitors, or

records access to an object by a specified user.
Acronym(s): ACE
Associated term(s): Access Control List (ACL)
Return to top

• add
 Access Control List

A list of access control entries (ACE) that apply to an object. Each ACE controls or
monitors access to an object by a specified user. In a discretionary access
control list (DACL), the ACL controls access; in a system access control list
(SACL) the ACL monitors access in a security event log which can comprise part
of an audit trail.
Acronym(s): ACL
Associated term(s): Access Control Entry (ACE)
Return to top

• add

Accountability

The implementation of appropriate technical and organisational measures to

ensure and be able to demonstrate that the handling of personal data is
performed in accordance with relevant law, an idea codified in the EU General
Data Protection Regulation and other frameworks, including APEC's Cross
Border Privacy Rules. Traditionally, accountability has been a fair information
practices principle, that due diligence and reasonable steps will be undertaken to
ensure that personal information will be protected and handled consistently with
relevant law and other fair use principles.
Return to top

• add

Accuracy

Organizations must take every reasonable step to ensure the data processed is
accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. Reasonable measures should be
understood as implementing processes to prevent inaccuracies during the data
collection process as well as during the ongoing data processing in relation to the
specific use for which the data is processed. The organization must consider the
type of data and the specific purposes to maintain the accuracy of personal data
in relation to the purpose. Accuracy also embodies the responsibility to respond
to data subject requests to correct records that contain incomplete information or
misinformation.
Return to top

• add

Act Respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private

Sector
 A Québéquois privacy law that, other than different terminology, is similar
to PIPEDA, though at a province level. It came into force in 1994 and espouses
three principles: (1) Every person who establishes a file on another person must
have a serious and legitimate reason for doing so; (2) The person establishing the
file may not deny the individual concerned access to the information contained in
the file; (3) The person must also respect certain rules that are applicable to the
collection, storage, use and communication of this information.
Link to text of law: Act Respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the
Private Sector
Return to top

• add

Active Data Collection

When an end user deliberately provides information, typically through the use of
web forms, text boxes, check boxes or radio buttons.
Associated term(s): Passive Data Collection, First-party Collection, Surveillance
Collection, Repurposing, Third-party Collection
Return to top

• add

Active Scanning Tools

DLP network, storage, scans and privacy tools can be used to identify security and
privacy risks to personal information. They can also be used to monitor for
compliance with internal policies and procedures, and block e-mail or file
transfers based on the data category and definitions.
Return to top

• add

Ad Exchange

An ad trafficking system through which advertisers, publishers, and networks

meet and do business via a unified platform. An ad exchange allows advertisers
and publishers to use the same technological platform, services, and methods,
and "speak the same language" in order to exchange data, set prices, and
ultimately serve an ad.
Return to top

• add

Ad Network
 A company that serves as a broker between a group of publishers and a group of
advertisers. Networks traditionally aggregate unsold inventory from publishers in
order to offer advertisers a consolidated and generally less expensive pool of
impressions, but they can have a wide variety of business models and clients.
Return to top

• add

AdChoices

A program run by the Digital Advertising Alliance to promote awareness and

choice in advertising for internet users. Websites with ads from participating
DAA members will have an AdChoices icon near advertisements or at the bottom
of their pages. By clicking on the Adchoices icon, users may set preferences for
behavioral advertising on that website or with DAA members generally across the
web.
Associated term(s): Digital Advertising Alliance
Return to top

• add

Adequate Level of Protection

A transfer of personal data from the European Union to a third country or an

international organisation may take place where the European Commission has
decided that the third country, a territory or one or more specified sectors within
that third country, or the international organisation in question, ensures an
adequate level of protection by taking into account the following elements: (a) the
rule of law, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, both general
and sectoral legislation, data protection rules, professional rules and security
measures, effective and enforceable data subject rights and effective
administrative and judicial redress for the data subjects whose personal data is
being transferred; (b) the existence and effective functioning of independent
supervisory authorities with responsibility for ensuring and enforcing compliance
with the data protection rules; (c) the international commitments the third
country or international organisation concerned has entered into in relation to
the protection of personal data.
Associated term(s): Adequacy
Return to top

• add

Administrative Purpose

The use of personal information about an individual in Canada in a decision-

making process that directly affects that individual.
 Return to top

• add

Advanced Encryption Standard

An encryption algorithm for security sensitive non-classified material by the U.S.

Government. This algorithm was selected in 2001 to replace the previous
algorithm, the Date Encryption Standard (DES), by the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST), a unit of the U.S. Commerce Department,
through an open competition. The winning algorithm (RijnDael, pronounced
rain-dahl), was developed by two Belgian cryptographers, Joan Daemen and
Vincent Rijmen.
Acronym(s): AES
Associated term(s): Authentication, Encryption
Return to top

• add

Adverse Action

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the term “adverse action” is defined very
broadly to include all business, credit and employment actions affecting
consumers that can be considered to have a negative impact, such as denying or
canceling credit or insurance, or denying employment or promotion. No adverse
action occurs in a credit transaction where the creditor makes a counteroffer that
is accepted by the consumer. Such an action requires that the decision maker
furnish the recipient of the adverse action with a copy of the credit report leading
to the adverse action.
Associated law(s): FCRA
Return to top

• add

Agile Development Model

A process of software system and product design that incorporates new system
requirements during the actual creation of the system, as opposed to the Plan-
Driven Development Model. Agile development takes a given project and focuses
on specific portions to develop one at a time. An example of Agile development is
the Scrum Model.
Associated term(s): Plan-Driven Development Model, User Stories, SRS
Return to top

• add
 Alberta PIPA

A privacy law in the Canadian province of Alberta, similar to PIPEDA, that came
into force in 2004. Unlike PIPEDA, these acts clearly apply to employee
information.
Link to text of law: Alberta PIPA
Associated law(s): PIPEDA
Return to top

• add

Algorithms

Mathematical applications applied to a block of data.

Return to top

• add

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

A U.S. professional organization of certified public accountants and co-creator of

the WebTrust seal program.
Acronym(s): AICPA
Associated term(s): Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Seal
Programs, WebTrust
Return to top

• add

Americans with Disabilities Act

A U.S. law that bars discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities.
Link to text of law: Americans with Disabilities Act
Acronym(s): ADA
Return to top

• add

Annual Independent Evaluations

 Under FISMA, U.S. agencies’ information security programs must be
independently evaluated yearly. The independent auditor is selected by the
agency's inspector general or the head of the agency. The audit is submitted to
the Office of Management and Budget.
Associated law(s): FISMA
Return to top

• add

Annual Reports

The requirement under the General Data Protection Regulation that the
European Data Protection Board and each supervisory authority periodically
report on their activities. The supervisory authority report should include
infringements and the activities that the authority conducted under their Article
58(2) powers. The EDPB report should include guidelines, recommendations,
best practices and binding decisions. Additionally, the report should include the
protection of natural persons with regard to processing in the EU and, where
relevant, in third countries and international organisations. The report shall be
made public and be transmitted to the European Parliament, to the Council and
to the Commission.
Associated law(s): EU Data Protection Directive
Return to top

• add

Anonymization

The process in which individually identifiable data is altered in such a way that it
no longer can be related back to a given individual. Among many techniques,
there are three primary ways that data is anonymized. Suppression is the most
basic version of anonymization and it simply removes some identifying values
from data to reduce its identifiability. Generalization takes specific identifying
values and makes them broader, such as changing a specific age (18) to an age
range (18-24). Noise addition takes identifying values from a given data set and
switches them with identifying values from another individual in that data set.
Note that all of these processes will not guarantee that data is no longer
identifiable and have to be performed in such a way that does not harm the
usability of the data.
Associated law(s):Anonymous Data, De-Identification, Mircodata Sets, Re-
identification
Return to top

• add

Anonymous Information
 In contrast to personal data, anonymous information or data is not related to an
identified or an identifiable natural person and cannot be combined with other
information to re-identify individuals. It has been rendered unidentifiable and, as
such, is not protected by the GDPR.
Associated term(s): Pseudonymous Data, De-Identification, Re-Identification
Return to top

• add

Anthropomorphism

Attributing human characteristics or behaviors to non-human objects.

Return to top

• add

Anti-discrimination Laws

Anti-discrimination laws are indications of special classes of personal data. If

there exists law protecting against discrimination based on a class or status, it is
likely personal information relating to that class or status is subject to more
stringent data protection regulation, under the GDPR or otherwise.
Return to top

• add

APEC Privacy Principles

A set of non-binding principles adopted by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative

(APEC) that mirror the OECD Fair Information Privacy Practices. Though based
on OECD Guidelines, they seek to promote electronic commerce throughout the
Asia-Pacific region by balancing information privacy with business needs.
Return to top

• add

Application or field encryption

Ability to encrypt specific fields of data; specifically sensitive data such as credit
cards numbers or health-related information.
Return to top

• add
 Application-Layer Attacks

Attacks that exploit flaws in the network applications installed on network

servers. Such weaknesses exist in web browsers, e-mail server software, network
routing software and other standard enterprise applications. Regularly applying
patches and updates to applications may help prevent such attacks.
Return to top

• add

Appropriate Safeguards

The General Data Protection Regulation refers to appropriate safeguards in a

number of contexts, including the transfer of personal data to third countries
outside the European Union, the processing of special categories of data, and the
processing of personal data in a law enforcement context. This generally refers to
the application of the general data protection principles, in particular purpose
limitation, data minimisation, limited storage periods, data quality, data
protection by design and by default, legal basis for processing, processing of
special categories of personal data, measures to ensure data security, and the
requirements in respect of onward transfers to bodies not bound by the binding
corporate rules. This may also refer to the use of encryption or pseudonymization,
standard data protection clauses adopted by the Commission, contractual clauses
authorized by a supervisory authority, or certification schemes or codes of
conduct authorized by the Commission or a supervisory authority. Those
safeguards should ensure compliance with data protection requirements and the
rights of the data subjects appropriate to processing within the European Union.
Return to top

• add

Appropriate Technical and Organizational Measures

The General Data Protection Regulation requires a risk-based approach to data

protection, whereby organizations take into account the nature, scope, context
and purposes of processing, as well as the risks of varying likelihood and severity
to the rights and freedoms of natural persons, and institute policies, controls and
certain technologies to mitigate those risks. These "appropriate technical and
organisational measures" might help meet the obligation to keep personal data
secure, including technical safeguards against accidents and negligence or
deliberate and malevolent actions, or involve the implementation of data
protection policies. These measures should be demonstrable on demand to data
protection authorities and reviewed regularly.
Return to top

• add
 Appropriation

Using someone's identity for another person's purposes.

Return to top

• add

Article 29 Working Party

The Article 29 Working Party (WP29) was a European Union organization that
functioned as an independent advisory body on data protection and privacy and
consisted of the collected data protection authorities of the member states. It was
replaced by the similarly constituted European Data Protection Board (EDPB) on
May 25, 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into
effect.
Acronym(s): WP29
Return to top

• add

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a broad term used to describe a process where machines

learn from experience, adjusting to new inputs, and potentially performing tasks
previously done by humans. More specifically, it is a field of computer science
dedicated to simulating intelligent behavior in computers. It may include
automated decision-making (see also Machine Learning).
Return to top

• add

Assess

The first of four phases of the privacy operational life cycle; provides the steps,
checklists and processes necessary to assess any gaps in a privacy program as
compared to industry best practices, corporate privacy policies, applicable privacy
laws, and objective-based privacy program frameworks.
Associated term(s): Privacy Operational Life Cycle; Protect; Sustain; Respond
Return to top

• add

Asymmetric Encryption
 A form of data encryption that uses two separate but related keys to encrypt data.
The system uses a public key, made available to other parties, and a private key,
which is kept by the first party. Decryption of data encrypted by the public key
requires the use of the private key; decryption of the data encrypted by the private
key requires the public key.
Associated term(s): Symmetric Encryption, Encryption
Return to top

• add

Attribute-Based Access Control

An authorization model that provides dynamic access control by assigning

attributes to the users, the data, and the context in which the user requests access
(also referred to as environmental factors) and analyzes these attributes together
to determine access.
Acronym(s): ABAC
Associated term(s): User-based Access Control
Return to top

• add

Audit Life Cycle

High-level, five-phase audit approach. The steps include: Audit Planning; Audit
Preparation; Conducting the Audit; Reporting; and Follow-up.
Return to top

• add

Audit Trail

A chain of electronic activity or sequence of paperwork used to monitor, track,

record, or validate an activity. The term originates in accounting as a reference to
the chain of paperwork used to validate or invalidate accounting entries. It has
since been adapted for more general use in e-commerce, to track customer’s
activity, or cyber-security, to investigate cybercrimes.
Return to top

• add

Authentication
 The process by which an entity (such as a person or computer system) determines
whether another entity is who it claims to be.
Associated term(s): Authorization
Return to top

• add

Authorization

In the context of information security, it is process of determining if the end user

is permitted to have access to the desired resource such as the information asset
or the information system containing the asset. Authorization criteria may be
based upon a variety of factors such as organizational role, level of security
clearance, applicable law or a combination of factors. When effective,
authentication validates that the entity requesting access is who or what it claims
to be.
Associated term(s): Authentication
Return to top

• add

Automated decision making

The process of making a decision without human involvement.

Return to top

• add

Automated Processing

A processing operation that is performed without any human intervention.

"Profiling" is defined in the General Data Protection Regulation, for example, as
the automated processing of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects
relating to a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects concerning
that natural person's performance at work, economic situation, health, personal
preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, location or movements. Data
subjects, under the GDPR, have a right to object to such processing.
Return to top

• add

Availability
 Data is "available" if it is accessible when needed by the organization or data
subject. The General Data Protection Regulation requires that a business be able
to ensure the availability of personal data and have the ability to restore the
availability and access to personal data in a timely manner in the event of a
physical or technical incident.
Return to top

• add

Background Screening/Checks

Organizations may want to verify an applicant’s ability to function in the working

environment as well as assuring the safety and security of existing workers.
Background checks range from checking a person’s educational background to
checking on past criminal activity. Employee consent requirements for such
check vary by member state and may be negotiated with local works councils.
Return to top

• add

Bank Secrecy Act, The

A U.S. federal law that requires U.S. financial institutions and money services
businesses (MSBs), which are entities that sell money orders or provide cash
transfer services, to record, retain and report certain financial transactions to the
federal government. This requirement is meant to assist the government in the
investigation of money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing and various
other domestic and international criminal activities.
Link to text of law: The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)
Acronym(s): BSA
Associated term(s): Financial Record Keeping and Reporting Currency and
Foreign Transactions Act of 1970
Return to top

• add

Basel III

A comprehensive set of reform measures, developed by the Basel Committee on

Banking Supervision, to strengthen the regulation, supervision and risk
management of the banking sector.
Return to top

• add

BC PIPA
 A privacy law in the Canadian province of British Columbia, similar to PIPEDA,
that came into force in 2004. Unlike PIPEDA, these acts clearly apply to
employee information.
Link to text of law: BC PIPA
Associated law(s): PIPEDA
Return to top

• add

Behavioral Advertising

Advertising that is targeted at individuals based on the observation of their

behaviour over time. Most often done via automated processing of personal data,
or profiling, the General Data Protection Regulation requires that data subjects
be able to opt-out of any automated processing, to be informed of the logic
involved in any automatic personal data processing and, at least when based on
profiling, be informed of the consequences of such processing. If cookies are used
to store or access information for the purposes of behavioral advertising, the
ePrivacy Directive requires that data subjects provide consent for the placement
of such cookies, after having been provided with clear and comprehensive
information.
Acronym(s): OBA
Associated term(s): Online Behavioral Advertising, Behavioral
Targeting, Contextual Advertising, Demographic Advertising, Premium
Advertising, Psychographic Advertising, Remnant Advertising
Return to top

• add

Big Data

A term used to describe the large data sets which exponential growth in the
amount and availability of data have allowed organizations to collect. Big data has
been articulated as “the three V’s: volume (the amount of data), velocity (the
speed at which data may now be collected and analyzed), and variety (the format,
structured or unstructured, and type of data, e.g. transactional or behavioral).
Associated term(s): Metadata
Return to top

• add

Binding Corporate Rules

Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs) are an appropriate safeguard allowed by the

General Data Protection Regulation to facilitate cross-border transfers of
personal data between the various entities of a corporate group worldwide. They
 do so by ensuring that the same high level of protection of personal data is
complied with by all members of the organizational group by means of a single set
of binding and enforceable rules. BCRs compel organizations to be able to
demonstrate their compliance with all aspects of applicable data protection
legislation and are approved by a member state data protection authority. To
date, relatively few organizations have had BCRs approved.
Acronym(s): BCR
Return to top

• add

Binding Safe Processor Rules

Previously, the EU distinguished between Binding Corporate Rules for controllers

and Binding Safe Processor Rules for processors. With the General Data
Protection Regulation, there is now no distinction made between the two in this
context and Binding Corporate Rules are appropriate for both.
Acronym(s): BSPR
Associated term(s): Binding Corporate Rules
Return to top

• add

Biometrics

Data concerning the intrinsic physical or behavioral characteristics of an

individual. Examples include DNA, fingerprints, retina and iris patterns, voice,
face, handwriting, keystroke technique and gait. The General Data Protection
Regulation, in Article 9, lists biometric data for the purpose of uniquely
identifying a natural person as a special category of data for which processing is
not allowed other than in specific circumstances.
Associated term(s): Personal Information
Return to top

• add

Blackmail

The threat to disclose an individual's information against his or her will.

Return to top

• add

Bodily Privacy
 One of the four classes of privacy, along with information privacy, territorial
privacy and communications privacy. It focuses on a person’s physical being and
any invasion thereof. Such an invasion can take the form of genetic testing, drug
testing or body cavity searches.
Return to top

• add

Breach Disclosure

The requirement that an organization notify regulators and/or victims of

incidents affecting the confidentiality and security of personal data. The
requirements in this arena vary wildly by jurisdiction. It is a transparency
mechanism that highlights operational failures, which helps mitigate damage and
aids in the understanding of causes of failure.
Associated law(s): FCRA, GLBA, HIPAA, various U.S. state laws
Associated term(s): Breach notification
Return to top

• add

Breach Disclosure (EU specific)

The requirement that a data controller notify regulators, potentially within 72

hours of discovery, and/or victims, of incidents affecting the confidentiality and
security of personal data, depending on the assessed risks to the rights and
freedoms of affected data subjects (see Data Breach).
Return to top

• add

Breach of confidentiality

Revealing an individual's personal information, despite a promise not to do so.

Return to top

• add

Bring Your Own Device

Use of employees’ own personal computing devices for work purposes.

Acronym(s): BYOD
Associated term(s): Consumerization of information technology (COIT)
 Return to top

• add

Browser Fingerprinting

As technology has advanced, it has become easier to differentiate between users

just based on the given instance of the browser they are using. Each browser
keeps some information about the elements it encounters on a given webpage.
For instance, a browser will keep information on a text font so that the next time
that font is encountered on a webpage, the information can be reproduced more
easily. Because each of these saved elements have been accessed at different times
and in different orders, each instance of a browser is to some extent unique.
Tracking users using this kind of technology continues to become more prevalent.
Return to top

• add

Bundesdatenschutzgesetz-neu

Germany's federal data protection act, implementing the General Data Protection
Regulation. With the passage of the GDPR, it replaced a previous law with the
same name (hence "neu" in common parlance) and enhanced a series of other
acts mainly in areas of law enforcement and intelligence services. Furthermore,
the new version suggests a procedure for national data protection authorities to
challenge adequacy decisions of the EU Commission.
Link to text of law: Bundesdatenschutzgesetz
Return to top

• add

Bureau of Competition

The United States’ Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition enforces

the nation's antitrust laws, which form the foundation of our free market
economy. The antitrust laws promote the interests of consumers; they support
unfettered markets and result in lower prices and more choices.
Associated term(s): Bureau of Consumer Protection; Bureau of Economics
Return to top

• add

Bureau of Consumer Protection

 The United States’ Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection
stops unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices by collecting complaints
and conducting investigations, suing companies and people that break the law,
developing rules to maintain a fair marketplace, and educating consumers and
businesses about their rights and responsibilities.
Associated term(s): Bureau of Competition; Bureau of Economics
Return to top

• add

Bureau of Economics

The United States’ Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Economics helps the
FTC evaluate the economic impact of its actions by providing economic analysis
for competition and consumer protection investigations and rulemakings, and
analyzing the economic impact of government regulations on businesses and
consumers.
Associated term(s): Bureau of Competition; Bureau of Consumer Protection
Return to top

• add

Business case

The starting point for assessing the needs of the privacy organization, it defines
the individual program needs and the ways to meet specific business goals, such
as compliance with privacy laws or regulations, industry frameworks, customer
requirements and other considerations.
Return to top

• add

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan

A risk mitigation plan designed to prepare an organization for crises and to

ensure critical business functions continue. The focus is to recover from a disaster
when disruptions of any size are encountered.
Acronym(s): BCDR
Return to top

• add

Business Continuity Plan

 The business continuity plan is typically drafted and maintained by
key stakeholders, spelling out departmental responsibilities and actions teams
must take before, during and after an event in order to help operations run
smoothly. Situations covered in a BCP often include fire, flood, natural disasters
(tornadoes and hurricanes), and terrorist attack.
Acronym(s): BCP
Return to top

• add

Caching

The saving of local copies of downloaded content, reducing the need to repeatedly
download content. To protect privacy, pages that display personal
information should be set to prohibit caching.
Return to top

• add

California Consumer Privacy Act

The first state-level comprehensive privacy law in the U.S. The CCPA, which
comes into force in 2020, will apply broadly to businesses that collect personal
information from California consumers, imposing extensive transparency and
disclosure obligations. It also creates consumers’ rights to access their personal
data and to request its deletion; to opt-out of the sale of their personal data; and
to nondiscrimination on the basis of their exercising any of their CCPA rights.
Return to top

• add

California Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act

A California state law that requires employers to notify applicants and employees
of their intention to obtain and use a consumer report.
Link to text of law: California Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act
Acronym(s): CICRAA
Return to top

• add

California Online Privacy Protection Act

 Requires that all websites catering to California citizens provide a privacy
statement to visitors and a easy-to-find link to it on their web pages. Websites
that carry personal data on children less than 18 years of age must permit those
children to delete data collected about them. Websites also must inform visitors
of the type of Do Not Track mechanisms they support or if they do not support
any at all.
Link to text of law: California Online Privacy Protection Act
Acronym(s): CalOPPA
Associated term(s): Do Not Track
Return to top

• add

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

Canadian anti-SPAM legislation applying to all forms of electronic messaging. It

requires that when a commercial electronic message (CEM) is sent, consent,
identification and unsubscribing requirements must be complied with. Typically,
consent from the recipient must be obtained before a CEM is sent. There are,
however, a number of exceptions to the need for consent.
Link to text of law: Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
Acronym(s): CASL
Return to top

• add

Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants

The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA), in partnership with the

provincial and territorial institutes, is responsible for the functions that are
critical to the success of the Canadian CA profession. CICA, pursuant to the 2006
Protocol, is entrusted with the responsibility for providing strategic leadership,
co-ordination of common critical functions of strategic planning, protection of the
public and ethics, education and qualification, standard setting and
communications
Acronym(s): CICA
Return to top

• add

Canadian Organization for the Advancement of Computers in Health

A Canadian health informatics association whose mission is to promote health

technology systems and the effective use of health information.
Acronym(s): COACH
Return to top
• add

Canadian Standards Association

A non-profit standards organization that developed its own set of privacy

principles and broke the OECD’s code into ten principles: (1) Accountability;
(2) Identifying purposes; (3) Consent; (4) Limiting Collection; (5) Limiting
Use, Disclosure, and Retention; (6) Accuracy; (7) Safeguards; (8) Openness;
(9) Individual Access; (10) Challenging Compliance. These ten principles would
go on to be listed in PIPEDA.
Acronym(s): CSA
Associated term(s): CSA Privacy Principles
Return to top

• add

Case Law

Principles of law that have been established by judges in past decisions. When
similar issues arise again, judges look to the past decisions as precedents and
decide the new case in a manner that is consistent with past decisions.
Return to top

• add

CCTV

Originally an acronym for "closed circuit television," CCTV has come to be

shorthand for any video surveillance system. Originally, such systems relied on
coaxial cable and was truly only accessible on premise. Today, most surveillance
systems are hosted via TCP/IP networks and can be accessed remotely, and the
footage much more easily shared, eliciting new and different privacy concerns.
Associated term(s): Video Surveillance
Return to top

• add

Census Bureau

The Census Bureau collects data to meet the nation’s statistical needs. Because
the data that the Census Bureau collects is often highly personal in nature, and
the Census Bureau depends on the trust of the individuals and businesses that
supply the data, privacy protection is a high priority.
Return to top
• add

Centralized governance

Privacy governance model that leaves one team or person responsible for privacy-
related affairs; all other persons or organizations will flow through this point.
Return to top

• add

Certification Mechanisms

Introduced by the General Data Protection Regulation, certification mechanisms

are a new valid adequacy mechanism for the transfer of personal data outside of
the European Union in the absence of an adequacy decision and instead of other
mechanisms such as binding corporate rules or contractual clauses. Certification
mechanisms must be developed by certifying bodies, approved by data protection
authorities or the European Data Protection Board, and have a methodology for
auditing compliance. Similar to binding corporate rules, they compel
organizations to be able to demonstrate their compliance with all aspects of
applicable data protection legislation.
Return to top

• add

Charter of Fundamental Rights

A treaty that consolidates human rights within the EU. The treaty states that
everyone has a right to protect their personal data, that data must be processed
for legitimate and specified purposes and that compliance is subject to control by
an authority.
Link to text of law: Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
Return to top

• add

Charter Rights

Rights created by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They are
constitutional rights and thus are considered to be the most valued rights in
Canada. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was made part of the Canadian
Constitution in 1982.
Link to text of law: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Return to top
• add

Chat bots

Computerized intelligence that simulates human interactions and may be used to

handle basic customer requests and interactions.
Return to top

• add

Chief FOIA Officer

Executive Order 13392 supplemented FOIA by reiterating the requirement for

agencies to process requests in a courteous and expeditious manner. In addition,
it required agencies to appoint a chief FOIA officer. The Open Government Act of
2007 codified this requirement and expanded on the responsibilities of the chief
FOIA officer to include the following: have agency-wide responsibility for efficient
and appropriate compliance with FOIA; monitor FOIA implementation
throughout the agency; recommend to the head of the agency any necessary
adjustments in practices, personnel, policies or funding.
Associated term(s): Freedom of Information Act
Associated law(s): Freedom of Information Act
Return to top

• add

Chief Privacy Officer (Agency level)

A position within an organization that is responsible for managing risks of

privacy laws and policies. Within the U.S. government, this position was created
under section 522(a) of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005.
Acronym(s): CPO
Return to top

• add

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998

A U.S. federal law that applies to the operators of commercial websites and online
services that are directed to children under the age of 13. It also applies to general
audience websites and online services that have actual knowledge that they are
collecting personal information from children under the age of 13. COPPA
requires these website operators: to post a privacy notice on the homepage of the
website; provide notice about collection practices to parents; obtain verifiable
 parental consent before collecting personal information from children; give
parents a choice as to whether their child’s personal information will be disclosed
to third parties; provide parents access and the opportunity to delete the child’s
personal information and opt out of future collection or use of the information,
and maintain the confidentiality, security and integrity of personal information
collected from children.
Acronym(s): COPPA
Link to text of law: 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6508
Return to top

• add

Choice

In the context of consent, choice refers to the idea that consent must be freely
given and that data subjects must have a genuine choice as to whether to provide
personal data or not. If there is no true choice it is unlikely the consent will be
deemed valid under the General Data Protection Regulation.
Associated term(s): Consent
Return to top

• add

CIA Triad

Also known as information security triad; three common information security

principles from the 1960s: Confidentiality, integrity, availability.
Associated term(s): Information Security Triad
Return to top

• add

CIO Council

The CIO Council is the principal interagency forum on Federal agency practices
for IT management. Originally established by Executive Order 13011 (Federal
Information Technology) and later codified by the E-Government Act of 2002,
the CIO Council’s mission is to improve practices related to the design,
acquisition, development, modernization, use, sharing and performance of
Federal Government information resources.
Return to top

• add

Ciphertext
 Encrypted (enciphered) data.
Associated term(s): NIST SP 800-21
Return to top

• add

Cloud Computing

The provision of information technology services over the Internet. These services
may be provided by a company for its internal users in a "private cloud" or by
third-party suppliers. The services can include software, infrastructure (i.e.,
servers), hosting and platforms (i.e., operating systems). Cloud computing has
numerous applications, from personal webmail to corporate data storage, and can
be subdivided into different types of service models.
Return to top

• add

Co-regulatory Model

Emphasizes industry development of enforceable codes or standards for privacy

and data protection against the backdrop of legal requirements by the
government. Co-regulation can exist under both comprehensive
and sectoral models.
Associated term(s): Comprehensive Laws, Sectoral Laws, Self-regulatory
Model, Technology Based Model
Return to top

• add

Code audits

Provide analysis of source code that detect defects, security breaches or violations
within a technology ecosystem.
Return to top

• add

Code reviews

Generally in-person meeting organized by developers who authored the code. The
review may consist of a reader, moderator and privacy specialist.
Return to top
• add

Codes of Conduct

Introduced by the General Data Protection Regulation, codes of conduct are a

new valid adequacy mechanism for the transfer of personal data outside of the
European Union in the absence of an adequacy decision and instead of other
mechanisms such as binding corporate rules or contractual clauses. Codes of
conduct must be developed by industry trade groups, associations or other bodies
representing categories of controllers or processors. They must be approved by
supervisory authorities or the European Data Protection Board, and have a
methodology for auditing compliance. Similar to binding corporate rules, they
compel organizations to be able to demonstrate their compliance with all aspects
of applicable data protection legislation.
Return to top

• add

Collection Limitation

A fair information practices principle, it is the principle stating there should be

limits to the collection of personal data, that any such data should be obtained by
lawful and fair means and, where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of
the data subject.
Return to top

• add

Commercial Activity

Under Canada's PIPEDA, “commercial activity” means any particular transaction,

act or conduct, or any regular course of conduct, that is of a commercial
character, including the selling, bartering or leasing of donor, membership or
other fundraising lists. Non-profit associations, unions and private schools are
likely to be found to exist outside of this definition.
Return to top

• add

Commercial Electronic Message

Any form of electronic messaging, including e-mail, SMS text messages and
messages sent via social networking about which it would be reasonable to
conclude its purpose is to encourage participation in a commercial activity.
 Examples include electronic messages that offer to purchase, sell, barter or lease
products, goods, services, land or an interest or right in land; offers to provide a
business, investment or gaming opportunity; advertises or promotes anything
previously mentioned.
Acronym(s): CEM
Return to top

• add

Common Law

Unwritten legal principles that have developed over time based on social customs
and expectations.
Return to top

• add

Communications Privacy

One of the four classes of privacy, along with information privacy, bodily privacy
and territorial privacy. It encompasses protection of the means of
correspondence, including postal mail, telephone conversations, electronic e-mail
and other forms of communicative behavior and apparatus.
Return to top

• add

Completeness Arguments

Used as a means of assuring compliance with privacy rules and policies in the
design of new software systems. Completeness arguments take privacy rules and
compare them to the system requirements that have been used to design a new
software system. By pairing privacy rules with specific system requirements,
necessary technical safeguards can be accounted for, preventing the software
from being designed in such a way that would violate privacy policies and
regulations.
Associated term(s): SRS, User Stories, Plan-driven Development Model, Agile
Development Model
Return to top

• add

Comprehensive Laws
 Laws that govern the collection, use and dissemination of personal information in
the public and private sectors.
Associated term(s): Omnibus Laws
Return to top

• add

Computer Forensics

The discipline of assessing and examining an information system for relevant

clues even after it has been compromised by an exploit.
Return to top

• add

Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act

Requires agencies that match data among agency systems granting financial
benefits to publicly disclose that matching and explain its scope.
Return to top

• add

Concept of Operations

Used in Plan-driven Development Models, a Concept of Operations is a detailed

outline of how a software product or system will work once it is fully operational.
This is used to shape how a product or system will be designed and implemented.
Acronym: CONOPS
Associated term(s): Plan-driven Development Model, SRS
Return to top

• add

Confidentiality

Data is "confidential" if it is protected against unauthorised or unlawful

processing. The General Data Protection Regulation requires that an organization
be able to ensure the ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability and resilience
of processing systems and services as part of its requirements for appropriate
security. In addition, the GDPR requires that persons authorised to process the
personal data have committed themselves to confidentiality or are under an
appropriate statutory obligation of confidentiality.
 Return to top

• add

Confirmed Opt-In

An email approach where email marketers send a confirmation email requiring a

response from the subscriber before the subscriber receives the actual marketing
e-mail.
Associated term(s): Double Opt-In
Return to top

• add

Consent

This privacy requirement is one of the fair information practices. Individuals

must be able to prevent the collection of their personal data, unless the disclosure
is required by law. If an individual has choice about the use or disclosure of his or
her information, consent is the individual's way of giving permission for the use
or disclosure. Consent may be affirmative; i.e., opt-in; or implied; i.e., the
individual didn’t opt out.
(1) Affirmative/Explicit Consent: A requirement that an individual ""signifies""
his or her agreement with a data controller by some active communication
between the parties.
(2) Implicit Consent: Implied consent arises where consent may reasonably be
inferred from the action or inaction of the individual.
Associated term(s): Choice
Return to top

• add

Consent (EU specific)

This privacy requirement is one of the fair information practices. In the General
Data Protection Regulation, however, consent is specifically one of the legal bases
for processing personal data. According to the GDPR, for consent to be valid, it
must be: clearly distinguishable from other matters, intelligible, and in clear and
plain language; freely given; as easy to withdraw as it was to provide; specific;
informed; and unambiguous. Further, it must be a positive, affirmative action
(e.g., checking opt-in or choosing technical settings for web applications), with
pre-ticked boxes expressly not allowed. For certain special categories of data, as
outlined in Article 9, explicit consent is required for processing, a higher standard
than unambiguous consent.
Return to top
• add

Consent Decree

A judgment entered by consent of the parties. Typically, the defendant agrees to

stop alleged illegal activity and pay a fine, without admitting guilt or wrongdoing.
This legal document is approved by a judge and formalizes an agreement reached
between a U.S. federal or state agency and an adverse party.
Associated term(s): FTC
Return to top

• add

Consistency Mechanism

In order to ensure the consistent application of the General Data Protection

Regulation throughout the European Union, the GDPR establishes a "consistency
mechanism" that allows member state supervisory authorities to cooperate with
one another. The mechanism applies particularly where a supervisory authority
intends to adopt a measure intended to produce legal effects as regards
processing operations which substantially affect a significant number of data
subjects in several member states. When a member state supervisory authority
intends to take action, such as approving a code of conduct or certification
mechanism, it shall provide a draft to the European Data Protection Board, and
the EDPB's members shall render an opinion on that draft, which the supervisory
authority shall take into account and then either amend or decide to go forward
with the draft in its original form. Should there be significant difference in
opinion, the dispute resolution mechanism will be triggered.
Return to top

• add

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Created by the Dodd-Frank Act, the consumer financial protection bureau is

intended to consolidate the oversight of the financial industry. It is an
independent bureau within the Federal Reserve and when it was created CFPB
took rule-making authority over FCRA and GLBA regulations from the FTC and
Financial Industry Regulators. Its enforcement powers include authority to take
action against “abusive acts and practices” as specified by the Dodd-Frank Act.
Acronym: CFPB
Associated law(s):Dodd-Frank Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Fair Credit
Reporting Act, Federal Trade Commission
Return to top

• add
 Consumer Report

As defined in the U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act: Any written, oral, or other
communication of any information by a consumer reporting agency bearing on a
consumer's credit worthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character, general
reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living which is used or expected
to be used or collected in whole or in part for the purpose of serving as a factor in
establishing the consumer's eligibility for (1) credit or insurance to be used
primarily for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) employment
purposes, or (3) other purposes authorized under section 604. The term does not
include any (A) any report containing information solely as to transactions or
experiences between the consumer and the person making the report; (B)
authorization or approval of a specific extension of credit directly or indirectly by
the issuer of a credit card or similar device; or (C) report in which a person who
has been requested by a third party to make a specific extension of credit directly
or indirectly to a consumer conveys his decision with respect to such request, if
the third party advises the consumer of the name and address of the person to
whom the request was made and such person makes the disclosures to the
consumer required under section 615.
Associated term(s): Credit Reporting Agency
Associated law(s): Fair Credit Reporting Act
Return to top

• add

Consumer Reporting Agency

Any person or entity that complies or evaluates personal information for the
purpose of furnishing consumer reports to third parties for a fee.
Acronym(s): CRAs
Associated term(s): Credit Reporting Agency
Return to top

• add

Consumerization of Information Technology (COIT)

A trend in the adoption of information technology where the technology emerges

first in the consumer market before spreading to business and government
organizations. The adoption of technology within organizations is driven by
employees using consumer devices at home and then introducing them into the
workplace.
Return to top

• add
 Content Data

The text, images, etc., contained within any communication message, such as an
email, text, or instant message on any given communications platform.
Specifically used often to distinguish from metadata (see Metadata). The ePrivacy
Directive and draft ePrivacy Regulation protect the confidentiality of content
data.
Return to top

• add

Content Delivery Network

The servers that contain most or all of the visible elements of a web page and that
are contacted to provide those elements. In the realm of advertising, a general ad
server is contacted after a webpage is requested, that ad server looks up any
known information on the user requesting to access the webpage.
Return to top

• add

Context aware computing

When a technological device adapts itself to the environment. This includes

characteristics as location, video, audio, brightness.
Return to top

• add

Context of authority

Control over the access to resources on a network is based on the context in which
the employee is connected to the network.
Return to top

• add

Contextual Advertising

The most used form of targeted advertising on the internet. The content of the ad
relies on the content of the webpage or the query entered by a user.
 Associated term(s): Behavioral Advertising, Demographic Advertising, Premium
Advertising, Psychographic Advertising, Remnant Advertising.
Return to top

• add

Contextual Integrity

A concept developed by Helen Nissenbaum, contextual integrity is a way to think

about and quantify potential privacy risks in software systems and products.
Contextual Integrity focuses on what consumer expectations are in a given
situation and how the product or system differs from that expectation. The more
a product or system deviates from those expectations, the more likely a consumer
will perceive a privacy harm.

Associated term(s): Privacy Risk

Return to top

• add

Contractual Clauses

Adopted either directly by the European Commission or by a supervisory

authority in accordance with the consistency mechanism (see Consistency
Mechanism) and then adopted by the Commission, contractual clauses are
mechanisms by which organisations can commit to protect personal data to
facilitate ongoing and systematic cross-border personal data transfers.
Return to top

• add

Controlled Unclassified Information

A system that standardizes and simplifies the way the executive branch handles
unclassified information that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls,
pursuant to and consistent with applicable law, regulations, and government-
wide policies. The program emphasizes the openness and uniformity of
government-wide practices. Its purpose is to address the current inefficient and
confusing patchwork that leads to inconsistent marking and safeguarding as well
as restrictive dissemination policies, which are often hidden from public view.
Acronym(s): CUI
Return to top

• add

Convention 108
 Convention 108 is a legally binding international instrument that requires
signatory countries to take the necessary steps in their domestic legislation to
apply the principles it lays down ensuring fundamental human rights with regard
to the processing of personal information.
Link to text of law: The Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard
to Automatic Processing of Personal Data
Return to top

• add

Cookie

A small text file stored on a client machine that may later be retrieved by a web
server from the machine. Cookies allow web servers to keep track of the end
user’s browser activities, and connect individual web requests into a session.
Cookies can also be used to prevent users from having to be authorized for every
password protected page they access during a session by recording that they have
successfully supplied their username and password already. Cookies may be
referred to as "first-party" (if they are placed by the website that is visited) or
"third-party" (if they are placed by a party other than the visited website).
Additionally, they may be referred to as "session cookies" if they are deleted when
a session ends, or "persistent cookies" if they remain longer. Notably, the General
Data Protection Regulation lists this latter category, so-called "cookie identifiers,"
as an example of personal information. The use of cookies is regulated both by the
GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive (see Cookie Directive).
Associated term(s): First-Party Cookie, Persistent Cookie, Third-Party Cookie,
Tracking Cookie, Web Cookie
Return to top

• add

Cookie Directive

The so-called "Cookie Directive" is an amendment made to the European Union's

Directive 2002/58, also known as the ePrivacy Directive, that requires
organizations to get consent before placing cookies (see Cookies) and other
tracking technologies on digital devices. With the passage of the General Data
Protection Regulation, this definition of consent has changed and opt-out consent
is no longer viable in this area.
Associated term(s): Directive 2009/136/EC, ePrivacy Directive
Return to top

• add

Cooperation
 Part of the consistency mechanism (see Consistency Mechanism) of the General
Data Protection Regulation, cooperation is required between supervisory
authorities when working with controllers or processors handling the personal
data of data subjects in multiple member states. This is often referred to as the
"one-stop shop," whereby a lead supervisory authority works with the supervisory
authorities of other member states with affected data subjects.
Return to top

• add

Copland v. United Kingdom

A case in which the European Court of Human Rights held that monitoring an
applicant's email at work was contrary to Article 8 of the Convention on Human
Rights.
Link to case: Copland v. United Kingdom
Return to top

• add

Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled (COPE)

COPE is the IT business strategy of providing employees with company-owned

devices. COPE may, nonetheless, implicate BYOD concerns when employees use
COPE devices equally for personal use.
Return to top

• add

Costeja

Shorthand for the case of Google Spain v AEPD and Mario Costeja González,
where Costeja successfully sued Google Spain, Google Inc. and La Vanguardia
newspaper. When the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that Google Spain must
remove the links to the article, the "right to be forgotten" (see Right To Be
Forgotten) was effectively established in the European Union. The General Data
Protection Regulation subsequently more formally granted data subjects the right
to deletion in certain circumstances.
Return to top

• add

Council of Europe
 The Council of Europe, launched in 1949, is a human rights organization with 47
member countries, including the 28 member states of the European Union. The
members have all signed the European Convention on Human rights and are
subject to the European Court of Human Rights. The Council's Convention 108
(see Convention 108) was the first legally binding international agreement to
protect the human right of privacy and data protection.
Return to top

• add

Council of the European Union

A council of ministers from the 28 member states of the European Union, this is
the main decision-making body of the EU, with a central role in both political and
legislative decisions. The council was established by the treaties of the 1950s,
which laid the foundations for the EU, and works with the European Parliament
to create EU law.
Link to: Council of the European Union
Associated term(s): Council of Ministers
Return to top

• add

Coupling

The interdependence between objects within a technology ecosystem and controls

the flow of information within a design. Tightening the coupling, allows objects to
depend on the inner working of other objects. Loosening the coupling reduces
object's dependency on other objects. Loosening isolates information processing
to a select group of approved classes and reduces the chance of unintentionally
re-purposing data.
Return to top

• add

Court of Justice of the European Union

The Court of Justice is the judicial body of the EU that makes decisions on issues
of EU law and enforces European decisions either in respect to actions taken by
the European Commission against a member state or actions taken by individuals
to enforce their rights under EU law. Based in Luxembourg, the Court was set up
in 1951, and was originally named the Court of Justice of the European
Communities. The court is frequently confused with the European Court of
Human Rights (ECHR), which oversees human rights laws across Europe,
including in many non-EU countries, and is not linked to the EU institutions.
Acronym(s): CJEU
 Link to: Court of Justice of the European Union
Return to top

• add

Credit Freeze

A consumer-initiated security measure which locks an individual’s data at

consumer reporting agencies. Is used to prevent identity theft, as it disallows both
reporting of data and issuance of new credit.
Return to top

• add

Credit Reporting Agency

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, any organization that regularly engages in
assembling or evaluating consumer credit information or other information on
consumers for the purpose of furnishing consumer reports to third parties for a
fee.
Acronym(s): CRA
Associated term(s): Consumer reporting agency
Associated law(s): FCRA
Return to top

• add

Cross-border Data Transfers

The transmission of personal information from one jurisdiction to another. Many

jurisdictions, most notably the European Union, place significant restrictions on
such transfers. The EU requires that the receiving jurisdiction be judged to have
“adequate” data protection practices.
Return to top

• add

Cross-border Data Transfers (EU specific)

Transfers of personal data to any country outside the European Economic Area
(EEA) may only take place subject to the condition that the third country ensures
an adequate level of protection for the personal data as determined by the
European Commission. It also applies to onward transfers — from one third
 country or international organisation to another (outside the EEA). In the
absence of an adequacy finding, organizations must use other mechanisms, such
as binding corporate rules, contractual clauses, or certification, for lawful
transfer.
Return to top

• add

Cross-site Scripting

Code injected by malicious web users into web pages viewed by other users.
Acronym(s): XSS
Return to top

• add

Cryptography

The science or practice of hiding information, usually through its transformation.

Common cryptographic functions include: encryption, decryption, digital
signature and non-repudiation.
Associated term(s): Digital signature, encryption, non-repudiation, PKI
Return to top

• add

Cryptosystem

The materials necessary to encrypt and decrypt a given message, usually

consisting of the encryption algorithm and the security key.
Associated term(s): Encryption
Return to top

• add

CSA Privacy Principles

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) ten privacy principles are based on
the OECD Guidelines and serve as the basis of Canada’s PIPEDA.
Associated term(s): Canadian Standards Association
Associated law(s): PIPEDA
Return to top
• add

Current baseline

“As-is” data privacy requirements; the current environment and any protections,
policies, and procedures currently deployed.
Return to top

• add

Customer Access

A customer’s ability to access the personal information collected on them as well

as review, correct or delete any incorrect information.
Return to top

• add

Customer Data Integration

The consolidation and managing of customer information in all forms and from
all sources allowable. CDI is a vital component of customer relationship
management.
Acronyms: CDI
Associated term(s): Customer Relationship Management

Return to top

• add

Customer Information

In contrast to employee information, customer information includes data relating

to the clients of private-sector organizations, patients within the healthcare sector
and the general public within the context of public-sector agencies that provide
services.
Return to top

• add

Cyber liability insurance

 Relatively new form of insurance protection that fills gaps typically not covered
by General Commercial Liability plans. Cyber liability insurance may cover many
breach-related expenses, including forensic investigations, outside counsel fees,
crisis management services, public relations experts, breach notification, and call
center costs.
Return to top

• add

Cyberbullying

Exposing a person's private details or re-characterizing the person beyond the

person's control via technology.
Return to top

• add

Dark patterns

Recurring solutions that are used to manipulate individuals into giving up

personal information.
Return to top

• add

Data Aggregation

Taking Individual data sets and combining them to statistically analyze data
trends while protecting individual privacy by using groups of individuals with
similar characteristics rather than isolating one individual at a time. To effectively
aggregate data so that it cannot be re-identified (or at least make it difficult to do
so) the data set should: (1) have a large population of individuals, (2) Categorized
to create broad sets of individuals, and; (3) not include data that would be unique
to a single individual in a data set.
Associated term(s): De-identification, Re-identification, Pseudonymous
Data, Anonymous Information, Identifiability, Identifiers.
Return to top

• add

Data Breach
 The unauthorized acquisition of computerized data that compromises the
security, confidentiality, or integrity of personal information maintained by a
data collector. Breaches do not include good faith acquisitions of personal
information by an employee or agent of the data collector for a legitimate purpose
of the data collector—provided the personal information is not used for a purpose
unrelated to the data collector's business or subject to further unauthorized
disclosure.
Associated term(s): Breach, Privacy Breach (Canadian)
Return to top

• add

Data Breach (EU specific)

A breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss,

alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data transmitted,
stored or otherwise processed. The General Data Protection Regulation instituted
new rules for notification of supervisory authorities and data subjects following
the discovery of a data breach, depending on the risk the breach presents to the
rights and freedoms of data subjects.
Return to top

• add

Data Breach Notification (EU specific)

The requirement that a data controller notify regulators, potentially within 72

hours of discovery, and/or victims, of incidents affecting the confidentiality and
security of personal data, depending on the assessed risks to the rights and
freedoms of affected data subjects (see Data Breach).
Return to top

• add

Data Brokers

Entities that collect, aggregate and sell individuals’ personal data, derivatives and
inferences from disparate public or private sources.
Return to top

• add

Data Centers
 Facilities that store, manage and disseminate data and house a network’s most
critical systems. Data centers can serve either as a centralized facility for a single
organization’s data management functions or as a third-party provider for
organization’s data management needs.
Return to top

• add

Data Classification

A scheme that provides the basis for managing access to, and protection of, data
assets.
Return to top

• add

Data Controller

The natural or legal person, public authority, agency or any other body which
alone or jointly with others determines the purposes and means of the processing
of personal data. Where the purposes and means of such processing are
determined by EU or member state law, the controller or the specific criteria for
its nomination may be provided for by EU or member state law.
Associated term(s): Data Processor
Return to top

• add

Data Elements

A unit of data that cannot be broken down further or has a distinct meaning. This
may be a date of birth, a numerical identifier, or location coordinates. In the
context of data protection, it is important to understand that data elements in
isolation may not be personal data but, when combined, become personally
identifiable and therefore personal data.
Return to top

• add

Data Flow Diagrams

A graphical representation of the flow of data in an information system thus

allowing the visualization of how the system operates to accomplish its purpose.
 DFDs are used both by systems analysts to design information systems and by
management to model the flow of data within organizations.
Acronym(s): DFD
Return to top

• add

Data Integrity Board

Under the Privacy Act, federal agencies using computerized means to match data
between electronic federal privacy record systems, or to match data from any
federal system with non federal records, are required to create a DIB composed of
senior officials and the agency’s inspector general. The DIB shall, among other
things: review, approve and maintain all matching programs; review all existing
matching programs annually to determine compliance with laws, regulations,
guidelines and agreements, and; assess the cost and benefits of the agreements.
Link to law: Privacy Act
Acronym(s): DIB
Associated term(s): Data Matching

Return to top

• add

Data Inventory

Also known as a record of authority, identifies personal data as it moves across

various systems and thus how data is shared and organized, and its
location. That data is then categorized by subject area, which identifies
inconsistent data versions, enabling identification and mitigation of data
disparities.
Return to top

• add

Data Life Cycle Management

Also known as Information Life Cycle Management (ILM) or data governance,

DLM is a policy-based approach to managing the flow of information through a
life cycle from creation to final disposition. DLM provides a holistic approach to
the processes, roles, controls and measures necessary to organize and maintain
data, and has 11 elements: Enterprise objectives; minimalism; simplicity of
procedure and effective training; adequacy of infrastructure; information
security; authenticity and accuracy of one’s own records; retrievability;
distribution controls; auditability; consistency of policies; and enforcement.
Acronym(s): DLM; ILM
 Associated term(s): Information Life Cycle Management
Return to top

• add

Data Loss Prevention

Term used to describe both the strategy for ensuring end users do not
disseminate sensitive information, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to
outside ineligible sources and the software products that aid network
administrators in controlling what data end users can transfer.
Acronym: DLP
Return to top

• add

Data Masking

The process of de-identifying, anonymizing, or otherwise obscuring data so that

the structure remains the same but the content is no longer sensitive in order to
generate a data set that is useful for training or software testing purposes.
Associated term(s): Obfuscation
Return to top

• add

Data Matching

An activity that involves comparing personal data obtained from a variety of

sources, including personal information banks, for the purpose of making
decisions about the individuals to whom the data pertains.
Return to top

• add

Data Minimization Principle

The idea that one should only collect and retain that personal data which is
necessary.
Link to text of law: Directive 95/46/EC
Link to text of law: Regulation EC (No) 45/2001
Return to top
• add

Data Minimization Principle (EU specific)

Data controllers must only collect and process personal data that is relevant,
necessary and adequate to accomplish the purposes for which it is processed.
Return to top

• add

Data Portability

In certain circumstances, generally where data processing is done on the basis of

consent or a contract, data subjects have the right to receive their personal data,
which they have provided to a controller, in a structured, commonly used and
machine-readable format and have the right to transmit that data to another
controller without hindrance from the controller to which the personal data has
been provided.
Return to top

• add

Data Processing

Any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets

of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection,
recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval,
consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making
available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.
Associated term(s): Data Processor, Processing, Processor
Return to top

• add

Data Processor

A natural or legal person (other than an employee of the controller), public

authority, agency or other body which processes personal data on behalf of the
controller. An organization can be both a controller and a processor at the same
time, depending on the function the organization is performing.
Associated term(s): Data Controller, Processor
Return to top
• add

Data Protection

The rules and safeguards applying under various laws and regulations to personal
data about individuals that organizations collect, store, use and disclose. “Data
protection” is the professional term used in the EU, whereas in the U.S. the
concept is generally referred to as “information privacy.” Importantly, data
protection is different from data security, since it extends beyond securing
information to devising and implementing policies for its fair use.
Return to top

• add

Data Protection Authority

Independent public authorities that supervise the application of data protection

laws in the EU. DPAs provide advice on data protection issues and field
complaints from individuals alleging violations of the General Data Protection
Regulation. Each EU member state has its own DPA. Under GDPR, DPAs have
extensive enforcement powers, including the ability to impose fines that total 4%
of a company’s global annual revenue.
Acronym(s): DPA
Return to top

• add

Data Protection Authority (EU specific)

A term often used to refer to a supervisory authority (see Supervisory Authority),

which is an independent public authority responsible for monitoring the
application of the General Data Protection Regulation in order to protect the
fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons in relation to processing and
to facilitate the free flow of personal data within the European Union. DPAs also
oversee other data protection-related laws, such as the ePrivacy Directive and
other local member state laws.
Return to top

• add

Data Protection by Default

The implementation of appropriate technical and organisational measures for

ensuring that, by default, only personal data which are necessary for each specific
 purpose of the processing are processed. That obligation applies to the amount of
personal data collected, the extent of their processing, the period of their storage
and their accessibility. In particular, such measures shall ensure that by default
personal data are not made accessible without the individual's intervention to an
indefinite number of natural persons. Such organizational measures could
consist, inter alia, of minimising the processing of personal data, pseudonymising
personal data as soon as possible, transparency with regard to the functions and
processing of personal data, and enabling the data subject to monitor the data
processing.
Return to top

• add

Data Protection by Design

When developing, designing, selecting and using applications, services and

products that are based on the processing of personal data or process personal
data to fulfil their task, producers of the products, services and applications
should be encouraged to take into account the right to data protection when
developing and designing such products, services and applications and, with due
regard to the state of the art, to make sure that controllers and processors are able
to fulfil their data protection obligations.
Return to top

• add

Data Protection Commissioner

The title given in some member states to the supervisory authority

(see Supervisory Authority).
Link to text of law: SI 535/2003
Associated term(s): Data Protection Authority
Return to top

• add

Data Protection Directive

See EU Data Protection Directive

Return to top

• add

Data Protection Impact Assessment

 The process by which companies can systematically assess and identify the
privacy and data protection impacts of any products they offer and services they
provide. It enables them to identify the impact and take the appropriate actions to
prevent or, at the very least, minimise the risk of those impacts. DPIAs are
required by the General Data Protection Regulation in some instances,
particularly where a new product or service is likely to result in a high risk to the
rights and freedoms of natural persons.
Acronym (s): DPIA
Associated term(s): Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs)
Return to top

• add

Data Protection Officer

While the title of data protection officer has long been in use, particularly in
Germany and France, the General Data Protection Regulation introduced a new
legal defintion of a DPO with specific tasks. Certain organizations, particularly
those that process personal data as part of their business model or those who
process special categories of data as outlined in Article 9, are obligated to
designate a DPO on the basis of professional qualities and, in particular, expert
knowledge of data protection law and practices. The DPO has a variety of
mandated tasks, including communication with the supervisory authority,
conducting DPIAs, and advising the organization on the mandates of the GDPR
and how to comply with it.
Return to top

• add

Data Protection Policy

Data protection policies outline the basic contours of the measures an

organization takes in the processing and handling of personal data. Key matters
the policy should address include: Scope, which explains both to whom the
internal policy applies and the type of processing activities it covers; Policy
statement; Employee responsibilities; Management responsibilities; Reporting
incidents; Policy compliance.
Return to top

• add

Data Protection Principles

Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation lists the principles as such:
Lawfulness, fairness and transparency; Purpose limitation; Data minimisation;
Accuracy; Storage limitation; Integrity and confidentiality.
 Return to top

• add

Data Quality

A fair information practices principle, it is the principle that personal data should
be relevant to the purposes for which it is to be used, and, to the extent necessary
for those purposes, should be accurate, complete and kept up-to-date. The quality
of data is judged by four criteria: Does it meet the business needs?; Is it
accurate?; Is it complete?, and is it recent? Data is of an appropriate quality if
these criteria are satisfied for a particular application.
Return to top

• add

Data Quality (EU specific)

One of the General Data Protection Regulation's explicitly stated data protection
principles, personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which it is to be
used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes, should be accurate,
complete and kept up-to-date. The quality of data is judged by four criteria: Does
it meet the business needs?; Is it accurate?; Is it complete?, and is it recent? Data
is of an appropriate quality if these criteria are satisfied for a particular
application.
Return to top

• add

Data Quality Act of 2000

Passed in response to the increased use of the Internet by U.S. federal agencies,
the act was designed to ensure the quality of information released by agencies by
establishing four major requirements: (1) Office of Management and Budget was
to issue guidelines "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility and
integrity" of disseminated information; (2) agencies must issue their own sets of
information quality guidelines; (3) agencies must establish administrative
mechanisms for persons to correct erroneous information about themselves; (4)
agencies must annually report to OMB regarding the number, nature and
handling of complaints.
Link to text of law: Data Quality Act of 2000
Acronym(s): DQA
Associated term(s): Information Quality
Return to top

• add
 Data Recipient

A natural or legal person, public authority, agency or another body, to which

personal data is disclosed, whether a third party or not. Public authorities that
receive personal data in the framework of a particular inquiry in accordance with
EU or member state law shall not be regarded as recipients, however. The
processing of that data by those public authorities shall be in compliance with the
applicable data protection rules according to the purposes of the processing.
Return to top

• add

Data Retention Directive

The now-defunct Data Retention Directive was designed to align the rules on data
retention across the EU member states in order to ensure the availability of traffic
and location data for serious crime and antiterrorism purposes. The Data
Retention Directive is no longer part of EU law, although member states retain
competence to adopt their own national data retention laws under Article 15(1) of
the ePrivacy Directive (2002/58/EC) provided that those laws comply with the
fundamental rights principles that form part of EU law and the CJEU ruling that
struck down the Data Retention Directive. Accordingly, EU member states have
introduced draft legislative amendments or implemented national data retention
laws at an individual country level.
Link to text of law: Directive 2006/24/EC
Return to top

• add

Data schema

Used to separate customer information. Data schema formulates all the

constraints to be applied on the data, defines its entities and relationships among
them.
Return to top

• add

Data Subject

An identified or identifiable natural person.

Return to top

• add
 De Novo

A Latin expression meaning “from the beginning,” “anew” or “beginning again.”

In a legal context, a de novo hearing is one in which a higher authority can make a
new decision, entirely ignoring the findings and conclusions of a lower authority.
Return to top

• add

De-identification

An action that one takes to remove identifying characteristics from data.

Acronym(s): De-ID
Return to top

• add

Decentralized Governance

Also known as “local governance,” this governance model involves the delegation
of decision-making authority down to the lower levels in an organization, away
from and lower than a central authority. There are fewer tiers in the
organizational structure, wider span of control and bottom-to-top flow of
decision-making and ideas.
Associated term(s): Local Governance
Return to top

• add

Deceptive Trade Practices

In the context of U.S. federal law, a term associated with corporate entities who
mislead or misrepresent products or services to consumers and customers. These
practices are regulated in the U.S. by the Federal Trade Commission at the federal
level and typically by an attorney general or office of consumer protection at the
state level. Law typically provides for both enforcement by the government to
stop the practice and individual actions for damages brought by consumers who
are hurt by the practices.
Associated term(s): Unfair Trade Practices
Link to text of law: U.S. Federal Trade Commission Act
Return to top

• add
 Declared Data

Personal information that is directly given to a social network or other website by

a user.
Associated term(s): Consent
Return to top

• add

Deep learning

A subset of artificial intelligence and machine learning. It learns by performing a

tasks repeatedly and adding layers of data to improve the outcome.
Return to top

• add

Defamation

Common law tort focuses on a false or defamatory statement, defined as a

communication tending “so to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in
the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or
dealing with him.”
Associated term(s): Common Law
Return to top

• add

Demand Side Platform (DSP)

A company that allows advertising clients to buy digital media on several different
selling systems, or exchanges, through one interface.
Return to top

• add

Demographic Advertising

Web advertising based on information about an individual such as age, height,

weight, geographic location or gender.
 Associated term(s): Behavioral Advertising, Contextual Advertising, Premium
Advertising, Psychographic Advertising, Remnant Advertising.

Return to top

• add

Derogation

In the context of European Union legislation interacting with member state law, a
derogation is a place in an EU-wide regulation where individual member states
are left to make their own law or have the option to deviate. A derogation can also
simply refer to an exception to a certain basic rule or principle.
Return to top

• add

Design patterns

Describes shared solutions to recurring problems. Design patterns serve to

improve program code maintenance by providing developers with a common
mental module when approaching a recurring problem.
Return to top

• add

Design Thinking Process

Used in combination with value-sensitive design. The design thinking process has
five phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test.
Return to top

• add

Differential identifiability

Setting parameters that limits the confidence that any particular individual has
contributed to an aggregated value.
Return to top

• add
 Digital Advertising Alliance

A non-profit organization that sets standards for consumer privacy, transparency

and control in online advertising. Over 100 advertising companies participate in
and comply with their standards. The DAA has an agreement with both
the Council on Better Business Bureaus and the Direct Marketing Association to
enforce the self-regulatory standards set down by the Digital Advertising
Alliance including AdChoices, a programming offering user control
over behavioral advertising.
Acronym: DAA
Associated term(s): AdChoices
Return to top

• add

Digital Fingerprinting

The use of log files to identify a website visitor. It is often used for security and
system maintenance purposes. Log files generally include: the IP address of the
visitor; a time stamp; the URL of the requested page or file; a referrer URL, and
the visitor’s web browser, operating system and font preferences. In some cases,
combining this information can be used to “fingerprint” a device. This more
detailed information varies enough among computing devices that two devices
are unlikely to be the same. It is used as a security technique by financial
institutions and others initiating additional security assurances before allowing
users to log on from a new device. Some privacy enforcement agencies; however,
have questioned what would constitute sufficient notice and consent for digital
fingerprinting techniques to be used for targeted advertising.
Associated term(s): Biometric Data, Authentication, Authorization
Return to top

• add

Digital Rights Management

The management of access to and use of digital content and devices after sale.
DRM is often associated with the set of access control (denial) technologies.
These technologies are utilized under the premise of defending copyrights and
intellectual property but are considered controversial because they may often
restrict users from utilizing digital content or devices in a manner allowable by
law.
Acronym(s): DRM
Return to top

• add
 Digital Signature

A means for ensuring the authenticity of an electronic document, such as an e-

mail, text file, spreadsheet or image file. If anything is changed in the electronic
document after the digital signature is attached, the signature is rendered invalid.
Associated term(s): Authentication, Encryption
Return to top

• add

Direct Marketing

When the seller directly contacts an individual, in contrast to marketing through

mass media such as television or radio.
Return to top

• add

Direct Marketing (EU specific)

In the context of data protection law, direct marketing can be defined as personal
data processed to communicate a marketing or advertising message. This
definition includes messages from commercial organisations, as well as from
charities and political organisations. While direct marketing is offered in the
General Data Protection Regulation as an example of processing for the
legitimate interest of an organization, it also says the data subject shall have the
right to object at any time to processing of personal data concerning him or her
for such marketing, which includes profiling to the extent that it is related to such
direct marketing.
Return to top

• add

Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications Act 2002/58EC

A continuation of policy directives for the European Union Member States as set
forth in the Data Protection Directive. It has been amended by the Cookie
Directive 2009/136EC, which added a requirement that all websites using
tracking cookies obtain user consent unless the cookie is “strictly necessary for
the delivery of a service requested by the use.” This policy recognizes the
importance of cookies for the functioning of modern websites while still making
users aware of any tracking the user may not want to participate in.
Link to text of law: Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications Act
2002/58EC
 Acronyms: ePrivacy Directive, Cookie Directive
Associated term(s): Data Protection Directive
Return to top

• add

Disassociability

Minimization of connections between data and individuals to the extent

compatible with system operational requirements.
Return to top

• add

Disclosure

The provision of access to personal data.

Return to top

• add

Discretionary Access Control

A type of access control that allows an owner of an object, within a given

computer-based information system, to grant or deny access.
Acronym(s): DAC
Associated term(s): Mandatory Access Control
Return to top

• add

Dispute Resolution

In the context of the consistency mechanism (see Consistency Mechanism), the

European Data Protection Board can issue binding decisions on objections to lead
authority decisions, on disputes about which supervisory authority should be the
lead authority, and where there has been a failure to request the EDPB’s opinion
under Article 64 or the opinion is not followed.
Return to top

• add

Distortion
 Spreading false and inaccurate information about an individual.
Return to top

• add

DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) Network

A firewall configuration for securing local area networks (LANs). In a DMZ

configuration, there are a set of computers that act as a broker for traffic between
the LAN and an outside network allowing the majority of computers to run safely
behind a firewall. Thus these computers act as a broker similar to a joint security
area in a political demilitarized zone.
Return to top

• add

Do Not Track

A proposed regulatory policy, similar to the existing Do-Not-Call Registry in the

United States, which would allow consumers to opt out of web-usage tracking.
Acronym(s): DNT
Return to top

• add

Do Not Track

A catch-all term for various technologies and browser settings designed to allow
data subjects to indicate their objection to tracking by websites. Years of effort, by
the W3C and other organizations, to create an official Do Not Track standard for
HTTP headers has of yet led to naught.
Acronym(s): DNT
Return to top

• add

Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003

Grants the authority to the Federal Trade Commission to create the National Do-
Not-Call Registry in the United States. The registry is open to all consumers,
allowing them to place their phone numbers on a national list which makes it
illegal for telemarketers to make unsolicited calls to those numbers, the only
exceptions being for political activities and non-profit organizations. Originally
 consumers would have to re-register their numbers with the FTC every five years
for continued prevention, but the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of
2007 extended registration indefinitely. Violations can be enforced by the
FTC, Federal Communications Commission, and state attorneys general with up
to a $16,000 fine per violation.
Associated term(s): Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communication
Commission, Do-Not-Call Improvement Act, National Do-Not-Call Registry
Return to top

• add

Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007

Amending the U.S. Do-Not-Call Implementation Act to remove the re-

registration requirement. Originally registration with the National Do-Not-Call
Registry ended after five years, but with this act the registrations became
permanent.
Associated term(s): Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications
Commission, Do-Not-Call Implementation Act, National Do-Not-Call Registry
Return to top

• add

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

In 2010 the U.S. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act to reorganize and improve
financial regulation. Among other reforms it put in place, the Dodd-Frank Act
created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and granted it rule-making
authority over FCRA and GLBA as well as a few other regulations.
Link to text of law: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
Associated law(s): Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau
Return to top

• add

Durant v. Financial Services Authority

A court case in which the Court of Appeal of the United Kingdom narrowed the
definition of personal data under the Data Protection Act of 1998. It established a
two-stage test; the information must be biographical in a significant sense and
the individual must be the focus of the information.
Link to text of case: Durant v. Financial Services Authority
Return to top

• add
 E-Authentication

To address the rise in citizen use of the Internet to access government

information and services, some type of identity verification or authentication is
needed. As such, agencies are required to review new and existing electronic
transactions to ensure that authentication processes provide the appropriate level
of assurance.
Associated term(s): Authorization
Return to top

• add

E-Commerce Websites

Websites with online ordering capabilities have special privacy advantages and
risks. Unlike other web advertisers, E-Commerce websites have direct access to
information regarding user purchases and payment information. While creating a
great opportunity for targeted advertising, it also puts extra onus on these
websites to protect user information.
Return to top

• add

E-Government Act

A U.S. federal law that, among other things, requires federal agencies to conduct
Privacy Impact Assessments on new or substantially revised information
technology.
Link to text of law: E-Government Act
Associated law(s): FISMA
Return to top

• add

Electronic Communications Data

Consists of three main categories of personal data, as defined in the European

Union under the ePrivacy Directive: the content of a communication, traffic data,
and location data.
Return to top

• add
 Electronic Communications Network

Transmission systems, and, where applicable, switching or routing equipment

and other resources that permit the conveyance of signals by wire, radio, optical
or other electromagnetic means, including satellite networks; fixed and mobile
terrestrial networks; electricity cable systems, to the extent that they are used for
the purpose of transmitting signals; networks used for radio and television
broadcasting, and cable television networks, irrespective of the type of
information conveyed. In the discussions surrounding the update of the ePrivacy
Directive to the ePrivacy Regulation, so-called "over the top" providers, like app-
based messaging services, are beginning to be considered as part of the electronic
communications network.
Acronym(s): ECN
Return to top

• add

Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986

The collective name of the Electronic Communications Privacy and Stored Wire
Electronic Communications Acts, which updated the Federal Wiretap Act of 1968.
ECPA, as amended, protects wire, oral and electronic communications while
those communications are being made, are in transit, and when they are stored
on computers. The act applies to e-mail, telephone conversations and data stored
electronically. The USA PATRIOT Act and subsequent federal enactments have
clarified and updated ECPA in light of the ongoing development of modern
communications technologies and methods, including easing restrictions on law
enforcement access to stored communications in some cases.
Link to text of law: Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986
Acronym(s): ECPA
Associated law(s): Stored Communications Act, Stored Wire Electronic
Communications Act, USA Patriot Act
Return to top

• add

Electronic Communications Service

Any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or
electronic communications.
Acronym(s): ECS
Return to top

• add

Electronic Discovery
 Prior to trial, information is typically exchanged between parties and their
attorneys. E-discovery requires civil litigants to turn over large volumes of a
company’s electronic records in litigation.
Associated term(s): Electronically stored information (ESI), Sedona Conference
Associated law(s): Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
Return to top

• add

Electronic Health Record

A computer record of an individual's medical file that may be shared across

multiple healthcare settings. In some cases this sharing can occur by way of
network-connected enterprise-wide information systems and other information
networks or exchanges. EHRs may include a range of data including
demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status,
laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal stats such as age
and weight and billing information. Their accessibility and standardization can
facilitate large-scale data collection for researchers.
Acronym(s): EHR
Associated law(s): HIPAA, HITECH
Return to top

• add

Electronic Surveillance

Monitoring through electronic means; i.e., video surveillance, intercepting

communications, stored communications or location based services.
Associated law(s): Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Stored
Communications Act, Wiretap Act
Return to top

• add

Employee Information

Personal information reasonably required by an organization that is collected,

used or disclosed solely for the purposes of establishing, managing or
terminating; (1) an employment relationship, or (2) a volunteer work relationship
between the organization and the individual but does not include personal
information about the individual that is unrelated to that relationship.
Return to top

• add
 Employee Personal Data

Article 88 of the General Data Protection Regulation recognises that member

states may provide for more specific rules around processing employees’ personal
data. These rules must include suitable and specific measures to safeguard the
data subject’s human dignity, legitimate interests and fundamental rights, with
particular regard to the transparency of processing, the transfer of personal data
within a group of undertakings, or a group of enterprises engaged in a joint
economic activity and monitoring systems at the workplace. Because of the power
imbalance between employer and employee, consent is generally not considered a
legal basis for processing employee data.
Return to top

• add

Employment at Will

An employment contract can be terminated by either the employer or the

employee at any time for any reason.
Return to top

• add

Encryption

The process of obscuring information, often through the use of a cryptographic

scheme in order to make the information unreadable without special knowledge;
i.e., the use of code keys. Encryption is mentioned in the General Data Protection
Regulation as a potential way to mitigate risk, and certain breach notification
requirements may be mitigated by the use of encryption as it reduces the risks to
the rights and freedoms of data subjects should data be improperly disclosed.
Return to top

• add

Encryption Key

A cryptographic algorithm applied to unencrypted text to disguise its value or to

decrypt encrypted text.
Return to top

• add
 End-User License Agreement

A contract between the owner of the software application and the user. The user
agrees to pay for the use of the software and promises to comply with certain
restrictions on that use.
Acronym(s): EULA
Associated term(s): Terms of Service
Return to top

• add

Enterprise Architecture

A conceptual outline, blueprint, or diagram that defines the structure and the
operation of an organization, normally in the context of developing a strategy for
the realization of current and future goals or objectives.
Acronym(s): EA
Associated term(s): IT Architecture
Return to top

• add

Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)

EMM refers to a comprehensive organizational strategy for securing and enabling

employee use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. EMMs are used
to prevent unauthorized access to applications containing corporate data on
mobile devices, usually through the use of password protection, encryption and
remote wiping technology.
Return to top

• add

ePrivacy Directive

A sectoral privacy directive for European Union Member States, which applies to
the digital industry. Among other provisions, the ePrivacy Directive requires
websites to obtain consumer consent before placing cookies for marketing
purposes. The EU is currently considering reform of the ePrivacy Directive.
Return to top

• add
 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, The

An independent U.S. federal agency that enforces laws against workplace

discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an
individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence,
disability and retaliation for reporting and/or opposing a discriminatory practice.
It is empowered to file discrimination suits against employers on behalf of alleged
victims and to adjudicate claims of discrimination brought against federal
agencies.
Link to: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Acronym(s): EEOC
Return to top

• add

Erasure

Article 17(1) of the GDPR establishes that data subjects have the right to erasure
of their personal data if: the data is no longer needed for its original purpose and
no new lawful purpose exists; the lawful basis for the processing is the data
subject’s consent, the data subject withdraws that consent, and no other lawful
ground exists; the data subject exercises the right to object, and the controller has
no overriding grounds for continuing the processing; the data has been processed
unlawfully; or erasure is necessary for compliance with EU law or the national
law of the relevant member state.
Return to top

• add

Established Business Relationship

An exemption to the Do Not Call (DNC) registry, a marketer may call an

individual on the DNC registry if a prior or existing relationship formed by a
voluntary two-way communication between a person or entity and a residential
subscriber with or without an exchange of consideration, on the basis of an
inquiry, application, purchase or transaction by the residential subscriber
regarding products or services offered by such person or entity, which
relationship has not been previously terminated by either party.
Associated term(s): Established customer relationship
Return to top

• add

Established Service Provider

 The GDPR establishes direct legal obligations applicable to service providers
acting as "processors" (see Processor), whilst giving an increased emphasis to the
contractual obligations in place between customers and data processing service
providers.
Return to top

• add

Establishment

Establishment implies the effective and real exercise of activity through stable
arrangements. The legal form of such arrangements, whether through a branch or
a subsidiary with a legal personality, is not the determining factor in that respect
(see Main Establishment).
Return to top

• add

EU Data Protection Directive

The EU Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) was replaced by the General Data
Protection Regulation in 2018. The Directive was adopted in 1995, became
effective in 1998 and was the first EU-wide legislation that protected individuals’
privacy and personal data use.
Associated term(s): Data Protection Directive
Return to top

• add

EU Data Retention Directive

See Data Retention Directive

Return to top

• add

EU-U.S. Safe Harbor Agreement

An agreement between the European and United States, invalidated by the Court
of Justice of the European Union in 2015, that allowed for the legal transfer of
personal data between the EU and U.S. in the absence of a comprehensive
adequacy decision for the United States (see Adequacy). It was replaced by the
EU-U.S. Privacy Shield in 2016 (see Privacy Shield).
 Return to top

• add

EU-US Privacy Shield

Created in 2016 to replace the invalidated EU-U.S. Safe Harbor agreement, the
Privacy Shield is an adequacy agreement that allows for the transfer of personal
data from the EU to the United States for companies participating in the
program. Only those companies that fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal
Trade Commission may certify to the Shield principles and participate, which
notably excludes health care, financial services, and non-profit institutions.
Return to top

• add

European Commission

The executive body of the European Union. Its main function is to implement the
EU’s decisions and policies, along with other functions. It initiates legislation in
the EU, proposing initial drafts that are then undertaken by the Parliament and
Council of the European Union. It is also responsible for making adequacy
determinations with regard to data transfers to third-party countries.
Return to top

• add

European Convention on Human Rights

A European convention that sought to secure the recognition and observance of

the rights enunciated by the United Nations. The Convention provides that
“(e)veryone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and
his correspondence.” Article 8 of the Convention limits a public authority’s
interference with an individual’s right to privacy, but acknowledges an exception
for actions in accordance with the law and necessary to preserve a democratic
society. This created the Council of Europe (see Council of Europe) and the
European Court of Human Rights (see European Court of Human Rights).
Link to text of law: European Convention on Human Rights
Return to top

• add

European Council
 The European Council is the collection of heads of states of European Union
member states. It provides general political direction for the EU and does not
exercise legislative functions.
Link to: European Council
Return to top

• add

European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, upholds

privacy and data protection laws through its enforcement of the European
Convention on Human Rights and Convention 108. The ECHR applies the
Convention and ensures that signatory states respect the rights and guarantees
set out in the Convention.
Acronym(s): ECHR
Link to: European Court of Human Rights
Return to top

• add

European Data Protection Board

The successor to the Article 29 Working Party, it consists of the heads of the
supervisory authorities of the member states and the European Data Protection
Supervisor (see European Data Protection Supervisor), and the Commission is
entitled to send a delegate to its meetings. The EDPB’s role is to ensure the
consistent application of the Regulation and, in addition to supporting
cooperation between the regulators and applying the consistency mechanism (see
Consistency Mechanism), it shall publish advice, guidance, recommendations and
best practices. The supervisory authorities elect a chairperson, with certain
powers, from amongst their membership.
Acronym(s): EDPB
Return to top

• add

European Data Protection Supervisor

The data protection regulator for the European Union as an entity, ensuring the
EU institutions, such as the Parliament, Commission, and Council of the
European Union, protect the rights and freedoms of data subjects. The EDPS acts
as secretariat to the European Data Protection Board (see European Data
Protection Board).
Link to: European Data Protection Supervisor
Acronym(s): EDPS
 Associated law(s): Regulation (EC) No 45/2001
Return to top

• add

European Economic Area

An economic region that includes the European Union (EU) and Iceland, Norway
and Liechtenstein—which are not official members of the EU but are closely
linked by economic relationship. Non-EU countries in the EEA are required to
adopt EU legislation regarding the single market.
Link to: European Economic Area
Acronym(s): EEA
Return to top

• add

European Economic Community

Created by the Treaty of Rome, the EEC was a predecessor to the European Union
that promoted a single economic market across Europe.
Link to text of treaty: European Economic Community
Associated term(s): The Common Market
Return to top

• add

European Parliament

The only EU institution whose members are directly elected by citizens of

individual member states, Parliament has four responsibilities—legislative
development, supervisory oversight of other institutions, democratic
representation and budget development.
Link to: European Parliament
Acronym(s): MEP (MEP stands for Member of European Parliament) - not an
acronym for Parliament itself.
Return to top

• add

European Union
 The European Union replaced the EEC, which was created by the Treaty of Rome
and first promoted a single economic market across Europe. The EU currently
comprises 28 member states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The U.K. is currently slated to leave the European Union in March 2019.
Acronym(s): EU
Return to top

• add

Exclusion

Denies an individual knowledge of and/or participation in what is being done

with their information.
Return to top

• add

Executive Order 12333

The order that provides information about the goals, direction, duties and
responsibilities with respect to the national intelligence effort and provides basic
information on how intelligence activities should be conducted. The executive
order states that agencies within the intelligence community are authorized to
collect, retain or disseminate information concerning United States persons only
in accordance with procedures established by the head of the agency concerned,
and must be approved by the attorney general.
Link to text of law: Executive Order 12333
Return to top

• add

Exposure

The revelation of information that we normally conceal from most others,

including private physical details about our bodies.
Return to top

• add

Extensible Markup Language

 A markup language that facilitates the transport, creation, retrieval and storage of
documents. Similar to HTML, XML uses tags to describe the contents of a web
page or file. XML describes content of a web page in terms of the data that is
being produced, potentially creating automatic processing of data in ways that
may require attention for privacy issues, unlike HTML, which describes the
content of a web page in terms of how it should be displayed.
Acronym(s): XML
Return to top

• add

Extranet

A network system formed through the connection of two or more corporate

intranets. These external networks create inherent security risks, while often also
meeting important organizational goals. An extranet opens a backdoor into the
internal network and provides a third party with a level of trust. While these risks
cannot be eliminated, they can be assessed, managed and mitigated. The
foundation of this management is a thorough and detailed e-business contract
that specifies who may access data, what data will be accessed and what security
controls the partner has in place. It should also detail how shared devices will be
managed, procedures for cooperating with technical staff in the event of problems
and escalation procedures for resolving difficult technical problems.
Return to top

• add

Factors Analysis in Information Risk (FAIR) model

FAIR constructs a framework that breaks risk into the frequency of action and
magnitude of the violations.
Return to top

• add

Factortame

A 1989 case brought before the European Court of Justice which established the
precedence of EU law over national laws of member states in areas where the EU
has competence.
Link to decision: The Queen v Secretary of State for Transport, ex parte:
Factortame Ltd and others
Return to top

• add
 Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003

An expansion of the Fair Credit Reporting Act which focuses on consumer access
and identity theft prevention. The act mandates that credit reporting
agencies allow consumers to obtain a free credit report once every twelve months.
Additionally, it allows consumers to request alerts when a creditor suspects
identity theft and gave the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) authority to
promulgate rules to prevent identity theft. The FTC used the authority to create
the Red Flags Rule.
Link to text of law: Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003
Acronym(s): FACTA, FACT Act
Associated term(s): Red Flags Rule
Associated law(s): Fair Credit Reporting Act
Return to top

• add

Fair Credit Reporting Act, The

One of the oldest U.S. federal privacy laws still in force today. It was enacted in
1970 to mandate accurate and relevant data collection, give consumers the ability
access and correct their information, and limit the use of consumer reports to
permissible purposes, such as employment and extension of credit or insurance.
Link to text of law: The Fair Credit Reporting Act
Acronym(s): FCRA
Associated law(s): Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA)
Return to top

• add

Fair Information Practice Principles

(1) The Collection Limitation Principle. There should be limits to the collection of
personal data and any such data should be obtained by lawful and fair means and,
where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of the data subject.
(2) The Data Quality Principle. Personal data should be relevant to the purposes
for which they are to be used and, to the extent necessary for those purposes,
should be accurate, complete and kept up-to-date.
(3) The Purpose Specification Principle. The purposes for which personal data are
collected should be specified not later than at the time of data collection and the
subsequent use limited to the fulfillment of those purposes or such others as are
not incompatible with those purposes and as are specified on each occasion of
change of purpose.
(4) The Use Limitation Principle. Personal data should not be disclosed, made
available or otherwise used for purposes other than those specified, except a) with
the consent of the data subject, or b) by the authority of law.
 (5) The Security Safeguards Principle. Personal data should be protected by
reasonable security safeguards against such risks as loss or unauthorized access,
destruction, use, modification or disclosure of data.
(6) The Openness Principle. There should be a general policy of openness about
developments, practices and policies with respect to personal data. Means should
be readily available of establishing the existence and nature of personal data and
the main purposes of their use, as well as the identity and usual residence of the
data controller.
(7) The Individual Participation Principle. An individual should have the right:
a) to obtain from a data controller, or otherwise, confirmation of whether or not
the data controller has data relating to him;
b) to have data relating to him communicated to him, within a reasonable time, at
a charge, if any, that is not excessive; in a reasonable manner, and in a form that
is readily intelligible to him;
c) to be given reasons if a request made under subparagraphs (a) and (b) is
denied and to be able to challenge such denial; and
d) to challenge data relating to him and, if the challenge is successful, to have the
data erased, rectified, completed or amended;
(8) The Accountability Principle. A data controller should be accountable for
complying with measures which give effect to the principles stated above.
Acronym(s): FIPs
Return to top

• add

Fairness

One of three requirements established by the General Data Protection Regulation

for the processing of personal data: The first principle of processing personal data
is "lawfulness, fairness, and transparency," which states that personal data should
be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data
subject. Linked most often with transparency, fairness means data subjects must
be aware of the fact that their personal data will be processed, including how the
data will be collected, kept and used, to allow them to make an informed decision
about whether they agree with such processing and to enable them to exercise
their data protection rights. Consent notices should not contain unfair terms and
supervisory authority powers should similarly be exercised fairly.
Associated term(s): Data Controller, Lawfulness
Associated law(s): EU Data Protection Directive
Return to top

• add

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

FERPA establishes requirements regarding the privacy protection of student

educational records. It applies to all academic institutions that receive funds
under applicable U.S. Department of Education programs. FERPA gives parents
 certain rights with respect to their children’s education records. These rights
transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school
beyond the high school level. Students to whom the rights have transferred are
referred to as “eligible students.”
Link to text of law: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
Acronym(s): FERPA
Return to top

• add

Federal Advisory Committee Act, The

A federal law governing the behavior of federal advisory committees, restricting

the formation of such committees to those deemed essential, limiting their
powers and their length of operation, requiring open meetings and open records
and mandating a publicly-accessible government-wide database.
Link to text of law: Federal Advisory Committee Act
Acronym(s): FACA
Return to top

• add

Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act

A federal law requiring agencies found of data mining to submit a yearly report to
Congress. The privacy office of that agency must be involved in producing the
report. The report will be made public and describe all of the agency’s data-
mining activity, goals and an assessment of the effectiveness of the data mining
activity.
Link to text of law: Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act
Return to top

• add

Federal Communications Commission

The United States agency that regulates interstate communications through

radio, wire, telecommunications, satellite and cable. The Federal
Communications Commission has authority that overlaps with the Federal Trade
Commission in some areas of privacy law including enforcement and further
regulation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
Acronym: FCC
Associated term(s): Federal Trade Commission, Do-Not-Call Implementation
Act, Do-Not-Call Improvement Act, Telephone Consumer Protection Act, Junk
Fax Prevention Act
Return to top
• add

Federal Enterprise Architecture Security and Privacy Profile

The FEA-SPP serves two functions in the integration of privacy and security risk-
management practices. First, it clearly articulates that while there is a symbiotic
relationship between security and privacy, these practices are not identical; they
are distinct practices, but intertwined. Second, the FEA-SPP lays the groundwork
for driving agency integration of privacy risk management into the fundamental
design of technical systems and technologies.
Link to text of law: Federal Enterprise Architecture Security and Privacy Profile
Acronym(s): FEA-SPP
Return to top

• add

Federal Information Security Incident Center

FISMA codified a federal information security center, which is implemented in

the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). U.S.-CERT is called
upon to provide timely technical assistance regarding security incidents; compile
and analyze security incident information; inform federal agency information
system operators about current and potential threats, and consult with NIST and
others regarding information security incidents.
Acronym(s): FISIC
Associated term(s): U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-
CERT), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Associated law(s): FISMA
Return to top

• add

Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, The

A U.S. federal law enacted as part of the E-Government Act of 2002. The act
requires each federal agency to develop, document and implement an agency-
wide program to provide information security for the data and data systems that
support the operations and assets of the agency, including those provided or
managed by another agency, contractor or other source. FISMA requires agency
program officials, chief information officers and inspectors general to conduct
annual reviews of the agency’s information security program and report the
results to Office of Management and Budget. OMB uses this data to assist in its
oversight responsibilities and to prepare this annual report to Congress on agency
compliance with the act. In FY 2008, federal agencies spent $6.2 billion securing
the government’s total information technology investment of approximately $68
billion or about 9.2 percent of the total information technology portfolio.
 Link to text of law: Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002
Acronym(s): FISMA
Return to top

• add

Federal Records Act

The Federal Records Act requires the establishment of standards and procedures
to ensure efficient and effective records management. The objectives of the
Federal Records Act interact with federal privacy to: Ensure appropriate
maintenance of a record that allows access rights to subject of the record;
Minimize the collection of PII; Ensure the destruction of PII when there is no
longer a business, legal, or historical need for the record.
Link to text of law: Federal Records Act
Associated term(s): PII
Associated law(s): Privacy Act
Return to top

• add

Federal Trade Commission

The United States' primary consumer protection agency, the FTC collects
complaints about companies, business practices and identity theft under the FTC
Act and other laws that they enforce or administer. Importantly, the FTC brings
actions under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair and deceptive
trade practices.
Acronym(s): FTC
Associated law(s): FTC Act
Return to top

• add

Federal Trade Commission Act, Section 5 of

Section 5(a) of the FTC Act empowers the agency to enforce against “unfair or
deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” Over the past two decades,
the FTC has used this authority extensively to hold businesses to fair and
transparent privacy and security standards.
Return to top

• add

Federated identity
 A model in which a person's identity is authenticated in a trusted centralized
service.
Return to top

• add

Final Health Breach Notification Rule

A rule, promulgated under HITECH, requiring vendors of personal health records

and related entities to notify consumers when the security of their individually
identifiable health information has been breached.
Associated law(s): HITECH
Return to top

• add

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

A corporation that acts as a regulator for brokerage firms and exchange markets.
Its primary charge is to make sure that security exchange markets, such as the
New York Stock Exchange, operate fairly and honestly and to protect investors.
Although it is a non-governmental regulator, ultimately it is subject to the
regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission along with the rest of the
security exchange industry.
Link to: FINRA
Acronym: FINRA
Associated law(s): Dodd-Frank Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
Return to top

• add

Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of

1989

After the savings and loans crisis of the 1980s, the U.S Congress passed FIRREA
to enable financial regulators to levy penalties up to $5,000,000 for failure to
comply with regulations. These penalties can be levied if a Financial institution
fails to comply with the information privacy requirements contained in GLBA.
Link to text of law: Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act
of 1989
Acronym: FIRREA
Associated law(s): Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
Return to top
• add

Financial Instruments and Exchange Law of Japan

Japanese legislation aimed at the financial services sector that established cross-
sectional legislative framework for investor protections, enhanced disclosure
requirements, provided guidelines for the management of self-regulatory
operations by financial exchanges, and implemented strict countermeasures
against unfair trading.
Link to text of law: Financial Instruments and Exchange Law of Japan
Return to top

• add

First-Party Collection

A data subject provides personal data to the collector directly, through a form or
survey that is sent to the collector upon the data subject submitting the
information
Associated term(s): Active Collection, Passive Collection, Surveillance
Collection, Repurposing, Third-party Collection
Return to top

• add

Five-Step Metric Life Cycle

See Metrics
Return to top

• add

Flash

Software that is used to add animation and other visual effects to web-based
content.
Return to top

• add

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, The

 A U.S. federal law regulating the way that U.S. intelligence agencies conduct
foreign intelligence surveillance activities, including wiretaps and the
interception of communications. The act sets forth a judicial approval process
required when the government targets U.S. persons located within the United
States. FISA allows warrantless surveillance to be conducted without a court
order for up to one year, provided the surveillance is for foreign intelligence
information, is targeting foreign powers and will not capture the contents of any
communication to which a U.S. person is a party. Generally speaking, FISA does
not apply to activities directed at persons overseas.
Link to text of law: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978
Acronym(s): FISA
Return to top

• add

Freedom of Information Act, The

A U.S. federal law that ensures citizen access to federal government agency
records. FOIA only applies to federal executive branch documents. It does not
apply to legislative or judicial records. FOIA requests will be fulfilled unless they
are subject to nine specific exemptions. Most states have some state level
equivalent of FOIA. The federal and most state FOIA statutes include a specific
exemption for personal information so that sensitive data (such as Social Security
numbers) are not disclosed.
Link to text of law: The Freedom of Information Act
Acronym(s): FOIA
Return to top

• add

Freely Given

The General Data Protection Regulation requires that consent be a freely given,
specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by
which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies
agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her. The data
subject must have a genuine choice, must be able to refuse or withdraw consent
without fear of consequence. Where there is a power imbalance, as in an
employer-employee relationship, for example, it's likely that consent cannot be
freely given.
Return to top

• add

Frequency data
 The number of times a data value occurs.
Return to top

• add

Functional System Requirements

Specific details about how a system should work, what inputs create what
outputs, and design elements to be implemented. For example, “A system shall do
processing of personal information to create user profiles.”
Associated term(s): Plan-driven Development Model, Agile Development
Model, SRS, User Stories, Non-functional System Requirements

Return to top

• add

Gap Analysis

Performed to determine the capability of current privacy management to support

each of the business and technical requirements uncovered during an audit
or privacy assessment, if any exist; requires reviewing the capabilities of current
systems, management tools, hardware, operating systems, administrator
expertise, system locations, outsourced services and physical infrastructure.
Return to top

• add

Gaskin v. United Kingdom

A judgment delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in 1989,in Gaskin

v. United Kingdom, held that the restriction of the applicant’s access to his
personal file was contrary to Article 8 of the Convention, citing a breach of
Gaskin's right to respect for his family and private life.
Link to text of case: Gaskin v. United Kingdom
Return to top

• add

General Data Protection Regulation

 The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) replaced the Data Protection
Directive in 2018. The aim of the GDPR is to provide one set of data protection
rules for all EU member states and the European Economic Area (EEA). The
document comprises 173 recitals and 99 articles.
Acronym: GDPR
Return to top

• add

Generally Accepted Privacy Principles

A framework promulgated by the American Institute of Certified Public

Accountants (AICPA) in conjunction with the Canadian Institute of Chartered
Accountants (CICA). The ten principles are management,
notice, choice and consent, collection, use and retention, access, disclosure to
third parties, security for privacy, quality, monitoring and enforcement.
Acronym(s): GAPP
Return to top

• add

Geo-social patterns

Data from smartphones and other devices that provide information regarding
mobility and social patterns and behaviors. Individuals share information such as
emotions, opinions, experiences and locations; generating a data about human
activity via artificial intelligence and machine learning which allows for
meaningful patterns and trends to be surmised.
Return to top

• add

Geocoding

The process of assigning geographic coordinates to non-locational data so that

they can be placed as points on a map. For example, geocoding could be used to
translate a street address (which describes a location) into precise coordinates
that identify the location on a map.
Return to top

• add

Geofencing
 Geofencing is the creation of virtual perimeters linked to the geographic position
of a mobile device. In the BYOD context, geofencing may be used to restrict
access to applications or sensitive information inside of or outside of specific
locations. For example, a company may be able to restrict access to potentially
risky applications on a personal device when the device is connected to the
company’s network or, conversely, restrict access to company resources when the
device is outside of the company’s network.
Return to top

• add

Geotagging

The process of adding geographical information to various media in the form

of metadata, such as latitude and longitude coordinates or city and state details
for the location of a photo or social media post.
Return to top

• add

Geotargeting

The practice of customizing an advertisement for a product or service to a specific

market based on the geographic location of potential customers.
Return to top

• add

GET Method

The GET and POST HTML method attributes specify how form data is sent to a
web page. The GET method appends the form data to the URL in name/value
pairs allowing passwords and other sensitive information collected in a form to be
visible in the browser’s address bar, and is thus less secure than the POST
method.
Associated term(s): POST Method
Return to top

• add

Global Privacy Enforcement Network

 Organized following an OECD recommendation for cooperation among member
countries on enforcement of privacy laws, GPEN is collection of data protection
authorities dedicated to discussing aspects of privacy law enforcement
cooperation, the sharing of best practices, development of shared enforcement
priorities, and the support of joint enforcement initiatives and awareness
campaigns. As of 2018, GPEN counted 50 member countries.
Acronym(s): GPEN
Return to top

• add

Globally Unique Identifier

An identifier that is one of a kind to a specific user. For example, biometric data
or a loginID for a social network.
Acronym(s): GUID
Associated term(s): Authentication, Authorization, Identifiability, Identifiers.
Return to top

• add

Government in the Sunshine Act

The Government in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552b, generally requires multi-
member federal agencies; i.e., the FCC and SEC, to hold their meetings in public
and to give advance public notice of their meetings. The goal of the Sunshine Act
is to promote public access to information about the decision-making processes
of the federal government and to improve those processes by exposing them to
public view.
Link to text of law: 5 U.S.C. § 552b
Acronym(s): GSA

Return to top

• add

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

The commonly used name for The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999.
The act re-organized financial services regulation in the United States and applies
broadly to any company that is “significantly engaged” in financial activities in
the U.S. In its privacy provisions, GLBA addresses the handling of non-
public personal information, defined broadly to include a consumer’s name and
address, and consumers’ interactions with banks, insurers and other financial
institutions. GLBA requires financial institutions to securely store personal
financial information; give notice of their policies regarding the sharing of
 personal financial information, and give consumers the ability to opt-out of some
sharing of personal financial information.
Link to text of law: Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
Acronym(s): GLBA
Return to top

• add

Haralambie v. Romania

The European Court of Human Rights decided in 2009 that Haralambie's Article
8 right to respect for private life and family life had been violated when the
applicant sought access to the secret service file on him drawn up in the days of
Communist rule in Romania and was made to wait six years. The court awarded
6,000 euros.
Link to case summary: Haralambie v. Romania
Return to top

• add

Harm Dimensions

University of Washington associate professor of law, Ryan Calo, identified two

dimensions of privacy harms: objective and subjective. The perception of harm is
just as likely to have a significantly negative impact on individual privacy as
experienced harms.
Return to top

• add

Hashing Functions

Or “hashing” is taking user identifications and converting them into an ordered

system to track the user’s activities without directly using personally identifiable
information (PII). Hashing can be used to encrypt or map data; in the context of
privacy, hashing is used in cryptographic hash functions and have many
information security applications.
Associated term(s): Anonymous Information, Pseudonymous Data, De-
Identification, Re-Identification
Return to top

• add

Health Breach Notification Rule

 A rule in the United States, promulgated under HITECH, requiring vendors of
personal health records and related entities to notify consumers when the
security of their individually identifiable health information has been breached.
Link to text of rule: Health Breach Notification Rule
Associated law(s): HITECH
Return to top

• add

Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act,

The

Enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the
HITECH Act, among other objectives, further addresses privacy and security
issues involving PHI as defined by HIPAA. The HITECH privacy provisions
include the introduction of categories of violations based on culpability that, in
turn, are tied to tiered ranges of civil monetary penalties. Its most noteworthy
elements elaborate upon breach notifications resulting from the use or disclosure
of information that compromises its security or privacy.
Link to text of law: HITECH Act
Associated term(s): EHR
Associated law(s): HIPAA
Return to top

• add

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, The

A U.S. law passed to create national standards for electronic healthcare

transactions, among other purposes. HIPAA required the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services to promulgate regulations to protect the privacy and
security of personal health information. The basic rule is that patients have to opt
in before their information can be shared with other organizations—although
there are important exceptions such as for treatment, payment and healthcare
operations.
Link to text of law: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
Acronym(s): HIPAA
Related terms: HITECH, The Privacy Rule, The Security Rule
Return to top

• add

Hide
 Personal information is made un-connectable or un-observable to others.
Return to top

• add

High level design

How the system's part, both front end and back end work together to implement
the behaviors that a system should exhibit.
Return to top

• add

High-level design

How the system's part, both front end and back end work together to implement
the behaviors that a system should exhibit.
Return to top

• add

Homomorphic

Allows encrypted information to be manipulated without first being decrypted.

Return to top

• add

House of Commons

One of two chambers of the Canadian Parliament, along with the Senate.
Members of the House of Commons are elected at least every five years.
Return to top

• add

HTML

See Hypertext Markup Language

Return to top
• add

Hybrid Governance

This privacy governance model allows for a combination of centralized and local
governance. Typically seen when a large organization assigns a main individual
responsibility for privacy-related affairs, and the local entities then fulfill and
support the policies and directives from the central governing body.
Return to top

• add

Hyperlink

Linked graphic or text that is used to connect an end user to other websites, parts
of websites or web-enabled services. The URL of a web location is embedded in
the HTML code, so that when certain words or images are selected through the
web browser, the end user is transported to the destination website or page.
Return to top

• add

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

A content authoring language used to create web pages. Web browsers use HTML
to interpret and render visible and audible content from the web pages.
Document “tags” can be used to format and lay out web page content and to
“hyperlink”—connect dynamically—to other web content. Forms, links, pictures
and text may all be added with minimal commands. Headings are also embedded
into the text and are used by web servers to process commands and return data
with each request.
Acronym(s): HTML
Associated term(s): HTTP, HTTPS
Return to top

• add

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

A networking language that manages data packets over the Internet. It defines
how messages are formatted and transmitted over a TCP/IP network for websites.
Further, it defines what actions Web servers and web browsers take in response
to various commands.
Acronym(s): HTTP
 Associated term(s): HTML, HTTPS
Return to top

• add

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure

A secure network communication method, technically not a protocol in itself,

HTTPS is the result of layering the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) on top of
the SSL/TLS protocol, thus adding the security capabilities of SSL/TLS to
standard HTTP communications.
Acronym(s): HTTPS
Associated term(s): HTTP, SSL/TLS
Return to top

• add

Identifiability

The degree to which a user is identified by an authentication system. The more

unique (identifiable), the easier that user is tracked or targeted. The less
identifiable, the easier it is to falsely authorize a non-user.
Associated term(s): Authentication, Authorization
Return to top

• add

Identifiers

Codes or strings used to represent an individual, device or browser.

Associated term(s): Authentication, Authorization, Identifiability, GUID
Return to top

• add

Identifying Purposes

Integral to privacy protection is the obligation on organizations to identify and

document the purposes for the collection of any personal information at or before
the time of collection.
Return to top

• add
 Individual Access

One of 10 privacy principles of PIPEDA. Organizations must be able to respond to

requests from individuals for access to their personal information.
Associated law(s): PIPEDA
Return to top

• add

Individual Participation

It is fair information practices principle that an individual should have the right:
a) to obtain from a data controller, or otherwise, confirmation of whether or not
the data controller has data relating to them; b) to have data relating to them
communicated to them within a reasonable time; at a charge, if any, that is not
excessive; in a reasonable manner, and in a form that is readily intelligible to
them; c) to be given reasons if a request made under subparagraphs (a) and (b) is
denied, and to be able to challenge such denial; and d) to challenge data relating
to them and, if the challenge is successful, to have the data erased, rectified,
completed or amended.
Associated term(s): FIPs
Return to top

• add

Information Banks

Repositories of personal information that are kept by the Canadian government

to comply with the Privacy Act.
Associated law(s): The Canadian Privacy Act
Return to top

• add

Information governance

Choreography of all stakeholders involved in the processing of personal data:

technical solutions, privacy compliance, security measures.
Return to top

• add

Information hiding
 Identifies data that has been assigned to specific levels of classification and
restrict access tot hat data via limited class functions.
Return to top

• add

Information Life Cycle

The information life cycle recognizes that data has different value, and requires
approaches, as it moves through an organization from collection to deletion. The
stages are generally considered to be: Collection, processing, use, disclosure,
retention, and destruction.
Return to top

• add

Information Life Cycle Management

Also known as data life cycle management (DLM) or data governance, ILM is a
policy-based approach to managing the flow of information through a life cycle
from creation to final disposition. ILM provides a holistic approach to the
processes, roles, controls and measures necessary to organize and maintain data,
and has 11 elements: Enterprise objectives; minimalism; simplicity of procedure
and effective training; adequacy of infrastructure; information security;
authenticity and accuracy of one’s own records; retrievability; distribution
controls; auditability; consistency of policies; and enforcement.
Acronym(s): DLM, ILM
Associated term(s): Data Life Cycle Management
Return to top

• add

Information Privacy

One of the four classes of privacy, along with territorial privacy, bodily privacy,
and communications privacy. The claim of individuals, groups or institutions to
determine for themselves when, how and to what extent information about them
is communicated to others.
Return to top

• add

Information Security
 The protection of information for the purposes of preventing loss, unauthorized
access and/or misuse. It is also the process of assessing threats and risks to
information and the procedures and controls to preserve confidentiality, integrity
and availability of information.
Acronym(s): IS
Return to top

• add

Information Security Practices

Provide management, technical and operational controls to reduce probable

damage, loss, modification or unauthorized data access.
Return to top

• add

Information Security Triad

Also known as “the C-I-A triad”; consists of three common information security
principles: Confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Associated law(s): C-I-A Triad
Return to top

• add

Information Sharing Environment

The ISE is a conceptual framework for facilitating the sharing of terrorism-related

information among federal, state, local and tribal agencies, the private sector, and
foreign partners. The ISE was mandated by the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA). ISE guidance includes steps that
ensure the information privacy and other legal rights of Americans are protected
in the development and use of the information-sharing environment. The ISE
privacy guidelines provide high-level direction on protecting privacy. The
guidelines apply to information about U.S. citizens and lawful permanent
residents.
Acronym(s): ISE
Associated law(s): Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
Return to top

• add

Information Utility
 The culture and desire of a business that seeks to use information collected by a
company in every way possible to improve services and products. This needs to be
balanced with privacy considerations.
Return to top

• add

Insecurity

Results from failure to properly protect individuals' information.

Return to top

• add

Integrity

The General Data Protection Regulation requires that controllers and processors
implement measures to ensure the ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability
and resilience of processing systems and services. Integrity refers to the
consistency, accuracy and trustworthiness of the data (see Accuracy).
Return to top

• add

Interactive Advertising Bureau

A trade association representing advertising businesses. The IAB develops

industry standards, conducts research, and provides legal support for the online
advertising industry.
Link to: Interactive Advertising Bureau
Acronym(s): IAB
Return to top

• add

Internal Partners

Professionals and departments within an organization who have ownership of

privacy activities, e.g., human resources, marketing, information technology.
Return to top

• add
 Internet of Things

A term used to describe the many devices that are connected to the internet. Any
device that is built with a network interface can be assigned an IP address to
allow for automation and remote access.
Return to top

• add

Internet Protocol Address

A unique string of numbers that identifies a computer on the Internet or

other TCP/IP network. The IP address is expressed in four groups of up to three
numbers, separated by periods. For example: 123.123.23.2. An address may be
"dynamic," meaning that it is assigned temporarily whenever a device logs on to a
network or an Internet service provider and consequently may be different each
time a device connects. Alternatively, an address may be "static," meaning that it
is assigned to a particular device and does not change, but remains assigned to
one computer or device.
Acronym(s): IP Address
Return to top

• add

Internet Protocol Address (EU specific)

Listed within the General Data Protection Regulation as a form of personal

information, a unique string of numbers that identifies a computer on the
Internet or other TCP/IP network. The IP address is expressed in four groups of
up to three numbers, separated by periods. For example: 123.123.23.2. An
address may be "dynamic," meaning that it is assigned temporarily whenever a
device logs on to a network or an Internet service provider and consequently may
be different each time a device connects. Alternatively, an address may be
"static," meaning that it is assigned to a particular device and does not change,
but remains assigned to one computer or device.
Acronyms: IP Address
Return to top

• add

Internet Service Provider

 A company that provides Internet access to homes and businesses through
modem dial-up, DSL, cable modem broadband, dedicated T1/T3 lines or wireless
connections.
Acronym(s): ISP
Return to top

• add

Interrogation

When the line of questioning or probing individuals for personal information is

not aligned with the context of the situation and a person feels compelled to
answer, social norms are breached and individual privacy is at risk.
Return to top

• add

Intrusion Detection System

A system that inspects network activity and identifies suspicious patterns that
may someone is attempting to penetrate or compromise a system or network. An
IDS: may be network-based or host-based; signature-base or anomaly-based, and
requires human intervention in order to respond to the attack.
Acronym(s): IDS
Associated term(s): Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)
Return to top

• add

Intrusion Prevention System

A form of access control. An IPS is much like an application firewall. Its intent is
not only to detect a network attack but to prevent it. It neither requires nor
involves human intervention in order to respond to a system attack.
Acronym(s): IPS
Associated term(s): Intrusion Detection System (IDS)
Return to top

• add

Intrusion reports

Monitoring a system for threats to security of a network.

 Return to top

• add

Investigative Consumer Report

As defined in the U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act: A consumer report or portion
thereof in which information on a consumer’s character, general reputation,
personal characteristics, or mode of living is obtained through personal
interviews with neighbors, friends, or associates of the consumer reported on or
with others with whom he is acquainted or who may have knowledge concerning
any such items of information. However, such information shall not include
specific factual information on a consumer’s credit record obtained directly from
a creditor of the consumer or from a consumer reporting agency when such
information was obtained directly from a creditor of the consumer or from the
consumer.
Associated term(s): Credit Reporting Agency
Associated law(s):Fair Credit Reporting Act
Return to top

• add

ISO 27001

The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 27001 standard is a

code of practice for implementing an information security management system,
against which organizations can be certified.
Return to top

• add

ISO 27002

The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 27002 standard is a

code of practice for information security with hundreds of potential controls and
control mechanisms. The standard is intended to provide a guide for the
development of "organizational security standards and effective security
management practices and to help build confidence in inter-organizational
activities". It can be considered a guide to implementing ISO 27001 (see ISO
27001).
Link to text of: ISO 27002
Return to top

• add

IT Architecture
 Also known as Enterprise Architecture (EA) is the set of policies (standards and
guidelines), principles, services, and products used by IT providers.
Associated term(s): Enterprise Architecture (EA)
Return to top

• add

IT Department

The division or component of an organization responsible for all forms of

technology used to create, store, exchange and use information in its various
forms.
Return to top

• add

Javascript

A computer scripting language used to produce interactive and dynamic web

content.
Return to top

• add

Joint Operations

A reference to joint investigations and joint enforcement measures in which

members or staff from the supervisory authorities of multiple member states are
involved. The General Data Protection Regulation requires supervisory
authorities to work with one another when processing operations affect data
subjects in multiple member states (see Consistency Mechanism).
Return to top

• add

Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005

Creates the Existing Business Relationship exception to the U.S. Telephone

Consumer Protection Act’sban of fax-based marketing without consent but
contains a requirement that all marketing faxes be accompanied by instructions
on how to opt out of further unsolicited communications.
Link to text of law: Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005
Acronym: JFPA
 Associated term(s): Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communication
Commission, Telephone Consumer Protection Act
Return to top

• add

Jurisdiction

The authority of a court to hear a particular case. Courts must have jurisdiction
over both the parties to the dispute (personal jurisdiction) and the type of dispute
(subject matter jurisdiction). The term is also used to denote the geographical
area or subject-matter to which such authority applies.
Return to top

• add

Just-in-Time Notification

Disclosure of specific information practices posted, usually accompanied by a

consent request, at the point of information collection.
Acronym(s): JIT Notice
Return to top

• add

k-anonymity

Relies on the creation of generalized, truncated or redacted quasi-identifiers as

replacements for direct identifiers.
Return to top

• add

l-diversity

Builds on k-anonymity by requiring at least "l" distinct values in each group of k

records for sensitive attributes.
Return to top

• add

Law Enforcement Authority

 A body sanctioned by local, regional or national governments to enforce laws and
apprehend those who break them.
Associated term(s): Public Law Enforcement Authorities
Acronym(s): LEA
Return to top

• add

Law Enforcement Authority (EU specific)

A body sanctioned by local, regional or national governments to enforce laws and

apprehend those who break them. In Europe, public law enforcement authorities
are governed by strict rules of criminal procedure designed to protect the
fundamental human right to privacy enshrined in Article 8 of the European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In the arena of data protection, law
enforcement is governed by the Directive on the Protection of Natural Persons
with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data by Competent Authorities for the
Purpose of Law Enforcement (Directive 2016/680), which came into force in
April 2016 (see Law Enforcement Directive).
Acronym(s): LEA
Return to top

• add

Law Enforcement Directive

Technically Directive 2016/680, or the Directive on the Protection of Natural

Persons with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data by Competent Authorities
for the Purposes of Law Enforcement, this is the EU law governing the handling
of personal data by competent law enforcement authorities. Each member state
has a law that translates this directive into national law. The directive covers the
cross-border and national processing of data by member states' competent
authorities for the purpose of law enforcement. This includes the prevention,
investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences, as well as the
safeguarding and prevention of threats to public security. It does not cover
activities by EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies, nor activities falling
outside the scope of EU law.
Return to top

• add

Lawfulness

One of three requirements established by the General Data Protection Regulation

for the processing of personal data. Personal data shall be processed lawfully,
fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject. Data subjects
 must be aware of the fact that their personal data will be processed, including
how the data will be collected, kept and used, to allow them to make an informed
decision about whether they agree with such processing and to enable them to
exercise their data protection rights. The GDPR outlines six bases for the lawful
processing of personal data.
Associated term(s): Fairness
Associated law(s): EU Data Protection Directive
Return to top

• add

Layered Notice

A privacy notice designed to respond to problems with a excessively long notices.

A short notice — the top layer — provides a user with the key elements of the
privacy notice. The full notice — the bottom layer — covers all the intricacies in
full. In its guidance on complying with the General Data Protection Regulation,
the Article 29 Working Party, which has now been replaced by the European Data
Protection Board, recommended a layered notice in order to meet requirements
of the GDPR that privacy notices be easily accessible and easy to understand, and
that clear and plain language be used.
Return to top

• add

Layered Security Policy

A layered approach defines three levels of security policies. The top layer is a
high-level document containing the controller’s policy statement. The next layer
is a more detailed document that sets out the controls that will be implemented to
achieve the policy statements. The third layer is the most detailed and contains
the operating procedures, which explain how the policy statements will be
achieved in practice.
Return to top

• add

Lead Supervisory Authority

The supervisory authority (see Supervisory Authority) of the main establishment

(see Main Establishment) or of the single establishment of the controller or
processor shall be competent to act as lead supervisory authority for the cross-
border processing carried out by that controller or processor. The lead
supervisory authority shall be the sole interlocutor of the controller or processor
for the cross-border processing carried out by that controller or processor.
Return to top
• add

Least Privilege

A security control where access is granted at the lowest possible level required to
perform the function.
Return to top

• add

Legal Basis for Processing

The General Data Protection Regulation requires data controllers to demonstrate

one of these six legal bases for processing: consent, necessity, contract
requirement, legal obligation, protection of data subject, public interest, or
legitimate interest of the controller. The controller is required to provide a
privacy notice, specify in the privacy notice the legal basis for the processing
personal data in each instance of processing, and when relying on the legitimate
interest ground must describe the legitimate interests pursued.
Return to top

• add

Legitimate Interests of Controller

One of the six legal bases for processing personal data in the General Data
Protection Regulation, the legitimate interests of a controller, including those of a
controller to which the personal data may be disclosed, or of a third party, may
provide a legal basis for processing, provided that the interests or the
fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject are not overriding, taking
into consideration the reasonable expectations of data subjects based on their
relationship with the controller.
Associated term(s): EU Data Protection Directive, Legitimate Processing Criteria
Return to top

• add

Legitimate Processing Criteria

See Legal Basis for Processing.

Associated term(s): Consent, Legitimate Interests of Controller
Associated law(s): EU Data Protection Directive
Return to top
• add

Limiting Use

The concept that personal information shall not be used or disclosed for purposes
other than those for which it was collected, except with the consent of the
individual or as required by the law.
Return to top

• add

Lindqvist Judgement

A case in which the European Court of Justice ruled that a woman who identified
and included information about fellow church volunteers on her website was in
breach of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. The ECJ held that the creation
of a personal website was not a personal activity allowing the woman to be
exempted from the data protection rules. Some observers wonder whether Recital
18 of the General Data Protection Regulation, which says the law does not apply
to the processing of personal data by a natural person in the course of a purely
personal or household activity and thus with no connection to a professional or
commercial activity, might affect this precedential ruling. Recital 18 says personal
or household activities could include correspondence and the holding of
addresses, or social networking and online activity undertaken within the context
of such activities.
Link to text of: Lindqvist Judgement
Associated law(s): Directive 95/46/EC
Return to top

• add

Linkability

The degree to which identifiers used to track an individual user can be paired
with outside information to identify that individual. For example, public record
can be paired with date of birth, gender and zip code to identify an individual.
Associated term(s): Anonymous Information, Pseudonymous Data, De-
Identification, Identifiability, Re-Identification, Identifiers, GUID
Return to top

• add

Local Area Network

 Networks that exist within an operational facility. They are considered within
local operational control and are relatively easy to manage.
Acronym(s): LAN
Associated term(s): WAN
Return to top

• add

Local Governance

Also known as “decentralized governance,” this governance model involves the

delegation of decision-making authority down to the lower levels in an
organization, away from and lower than a central authority. There are fewer tiers
in the organizational structure, wider span of control and bottom-to-top flow of
decision-making and ideas.
Associated term(s): Decentralized Governance
Return to top

• add

Local Shared Objects

Data files created on a computer’s hard drive by a domain to track user

preferences and used by all versions of Adobe Flash Player. They are often
called flash cookies. LSOs differ from HTTP cookies in that they are saved to a
computer’s hard drive rather than the web browser.
Acronym(s): LSOs
Associated term(s): Cookies
Return to top

• add

Location Data

Data indicating the geographical position of a device, including data relating to

the latitude, longitude, or altitude of the device, the direction of travel of the user,
or the time the location information was recorded.
Return to top

• add

Location-Based Service
 Services that utilize information about location to deliver, in various contexts, a
wide array of applications and services, including social networking, gaming and
entertainment. Such services typically rely upon GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi, or similar
technologies in which geolocation is used to identify the real-world geographic
location of an object, such as a mobile device or an internet-connected computer
terminal.-
Acronym(s): LBS
Associated term(s): Geolocation; GPS; Global Positioning System; RFID
Return to top

• add

Logs

A record of both normal and suspect events by a computer system (typically an

operating system). The application log contains events logged by applications or
programs. For example, a database program might record a file error in the
application log. The program developer decides which events to record. The
system log contains events logged by the operating system components; for
example, the failure of a driver or other system component to load during startup
is recorded in the system log. The event types logged by system components are
predetermined for the operating system. The security log can record security
events, such as valid and invalid log-in attempts as well as events related to
resource use, such as creating, opening, or deleting files. An administrator can
specify what events are recorded in the security log. For example, if you have
enabled log-in auditing, attempts to log in to the system are recorded in the
security log.
Return to top

• add

Low level design

The details of a high-level design system.

Return to top

• add

Machine Learning

A subfield of, or building block for, artificial intelligence (see Artificial

Intelligence), machine learning is a problem-solving technique that trains a
computer to identify new patterns. It implements various algorithms in a
problem-solving process that includes data cleansing, feature selection, training,
testing, and validation. Companies and government agencies increasingly deploy
 machine learning algorithms for tasks such as fraud detection, speech
recognition, image classification and other pattern-recognition applications.
Return to top

• add

Machine-readable Formats

“[W]ritten in a standard computer language (not English text) that can be read
automatically by a web browser.” (Source: OMG PIA Guidance)
Return to top

• add

Madrid Resolution

A resolution adopted in 2009 by the International Conference of Data Protection

and Privacy Commissioners, consisting of 80 data protection authorities from 42
countries around the world. The resolutions proposes international standards on
the protection of privacy with regard to the processing of personal data, to
include: lawfulness and fairness; purpose specification; proportionality; data
quality; openness; and accountability.
Link to text of resolution: The Madrid Resolution
Return to top

• add

Magnitude data

Refers to the size of the data. A table showing average income by age is magnitude
data.
Return to top

• add

Main Establishment

The main establishment of a controller in the Union should be the place of its
central administration in the European Union, unless the decisions on the
purposes and means of the processing of personal data are taken in another
establishment of the controller in the EU in which case that other establishment
should be considered to be the main establishment. The main establishment of
the processor should be the place of its central administration in the EU or, if it
has no central administration in the EU the place where the main processing
 activities take place in the EU. The member state location of the main
establishment determines the controller or processor's lead supervisory authority
(see Lead Supervisory Authority).
Return to top

• add

Manageability

The ability to granularly administer personal information, including

modification, disclosure and deletion.
Return to top

• add

Mandatory Access Control

An access control system by which access to data, by the owner or user, is

constrained by the operating system itself.
Acronym(s): MAC
Associated term(s): Discretionary Access Control
Return to top

• add

Matching Program (from The Privacy Act of 1974)

Any computerized comparison of two or more automated systems of records or a

system of records with non-Federal records for the purpose of establishing or
verifying the eligibility of, or continuing compliance by, applicants for, recipients
or beneficiaries of, participants in, or providers of services with respect to, cash or
in-kind assistance or payments under Federal benefit programs, or (any
computerized comparison of) two or more automated Federal personnel or
payroll systems of records or (any such system) with non-Federal records.
Associated term(s): The Privacy Act of 1974
Return to top

• add

Material Scope

The actions covered by a particular law or regulation.

Return to top
• add

Material Scope (EU specific)

The actions covered by a particular law or regulation. The material scope of the
General Data Protection Regulation, for example, is the processing of personal
data wholly or partly by automated means and to the processing other than by
automated means of personal data which form part of a filing system or are
intended to form part of a filing system, other than that processing that falls
outside of the scope of EU law, is done for personal or household use, or is done
for law enforcement purposes.
Return to top

• add

Max Schrems

Chairman and founder of noyb, a "privacy enforcement platform" that brings data
protection cases to the courts under the General Data Protection Regulation.
Schrems first came notoriety as an Austrian law student, who complained to the
Irish Data Commissioner that Facebook Ireland was illegally sharing his personal
data with the U.S. government, following the revelations of Edward Snowden.
The case, known as "The Schrems case" or "Schrems I," eventually caused the
invalidation of the Safe Harbor data-transfer agreement between the EU and U.S.
(see "Safe Harbor" and "Privacy Shield"). At the time of this writing, a second
case brought by Schrems, known as Schrems 2.0 or Schrems II, seeks to
invalidate standard contratual clauses when used to transfer data to the United
States from the EU.
Return to top

• add

Media Access Control Address

A hardware identification number that uniquely identifies each device connected

to a network. The MAC address is manufactured into every network card in each
device and therefore it cannot be changed and remains constant no matter what
network the device is connected to.
Acronym: MAC address
Return to top

• add

Medical Information
 Information or records obtained, with the consent of the individual to whom it
relates, from licensed physicians or medical practitioners, hospitals, clinics or
other medical or medically related facilities.
Associated term(s): HIPAA
Return to top

• add

Member State

A member state of the European Union, formally created by the Maastricht

Treaty in 1992. As of the last addition of member states in 2013, the EU consists
of: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The U.K. submitted
a notice of withdrawal under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2016 and will
leave the European on March 29, 2019, unless the European Council decides to
extend the two-year negotiating period by unanimous vote.
Return to top

• add

Members of the European Parliament

The only directly elected body of the European Union, the Parliament represents
one half of the legislative arm of the EU, alongside the Council of the European
Union. Members of Parliament are elected by citizens of the member states, in
proportion to the size of each country, every five years. Those MEPs then elect the
president of the European Commission. Its three primary responsibilities are
legislative development, supervisory oversight of the other institutions, and
development of the budget. As of 2018, the Parliament had 751 members.
Link to list of: Members of the European Parliament
Acronym(s): MEPs
Return to top

• add

Memorandum of Understanding/Agreement

“A document established between two or more parties to define their respective

responsibilities in accomplishing a particular goal or mission. In this guide [NIST
SP 800-47], an MOU/A defines the responsibilities of two or more organizations
in establishing, operating and securing a system interconnection.” For the
proposed transmission of PII among federal agencies, a memorandum will
govern the purpose, methods of transmission, relevant authorities, specific
 responsibilities of the organizations transmitting and receiving the PII, and risks
associated with its transmission.
Link to text of: NIST SP 800-47
Acronym(s): MOU

Return to top

• add

Metadata

Data that describes other data. “Meta” is a prefix meaning “an underlying
description” in information technology usage.
Return to top

• add

Metric Life Cycle

The processes and methods to sustain a metric to match the ever-changing needs
of an organization. Consists of a 5-step process: (1) Identification of the intended
audience; (2) Definition of data sources; (3) Selection of privacy metrics; (4)
Collection and refinement of systems/application collection points; and (5)
Analysis of the data/metrics to provide value to the organization and provide a
feedback quality mechanism.
Return to top

• add

Metrics

Tools that facilitate decision-making and accountability through collection,

analysis, and reporting of data. They must be measurable, meaningful, clearly
defined (with boundaries), indicate progress, and answer a specific question to be
valuable and practical.
Associated term(s): Metric Life Cycle
Return to top

• add

Microdata Sets

Groups of information on individuals that have been altered or suppressed in

some way to anonymize the data, protecting individuals from being identified.
 Associated term(s):Anonymous Information, De-Identification
Return to top

• add

Minimum Necessary Requirement

Under HIPAA, the standard that the level of information that may be disclosed by
healthcare providers to third parties is the minimum amount necessary to
accomplish the intended purpose.
Associated term(s): Minimum Necessary Standard
Associated law(s): HIPAA
Return to top

• add

Mobile Device Management (MDM)

MDM refers to software solutions that allow administrators to oversee the use of
mobile devices for productivity and security reasons. MDM solutions usually
allow an organization to control mobile apps, networks and data used by the
mobile device from a single centralized software product, thereby assuring better
control of company information on personal devices. MDM solutions also present
challenges in the BYOD context because they allow for greater monitoring of
employees' personal use of their devices. Some MDM solutions enable
organizations to remotely wipe a mobile device if it is suspected of being lost or
compromised, which raises additional concerns if personal employee
information is deleted.
Return to top

• add

Mobility

The extent to which a system moves from one location to another, as in laptop
and mobile phone capabilities.
Return to top

• add

Model Clauses

See: Standard Model Clauses

 Return to top

• add

Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information

A set of privacy principles developed by the Canadian Standards Association, that

parallel the OECD's Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and
Transborder Data Flows of Personal Data and espouse 10
principles: Accountability, Identifying Purpose, Consent, Limiting
Collection, Limiting Use, Disclosure, & Retention, Accuracy,
Safeguards, Openness, Individual Access and Challenging Compliance.
Link to text of: OECD's Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and
Transborder Data Flows of Personal Data
Return to top

• add

Monetary Instrument Log

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, the log of transactions a financial institution must
retain a record for cash purchases of monetary instruments (e.g., money orders,
cashier’s checks, travelers checks) ranging from $3,000 to $10,000.
Acronym(s): MIL
Associated law(s): Bank Secrecy Act
Return to top

• add

Multi-Factor Authentication

An authentication process that requires more than one verification method (see
Authentication), such as a password and biometric identifier, or log-in credentials
and a code sent to an email address or phone number supplied by a data subject.
Associated term(s): Two-Factor Authentication; Two-Step Authentication
Return to top

• add

Mutual Assistance

The General Data Protection Regulation requires that supervisory authorities

assist each other in performing their tasks and provide mutual assistance to one
 another so as to ensure the consistent application and enforcement (see
Consistency Mechanism). In certain cases, supervisory authorities can go forward
without mutual assistance if request for assistance is not answered within 30 days
or other time periods. The GDPR also requires international mutual assistance
with third countries and international organizations in the enforcement of
legislation for the protection of personal data, including through notification,
complaint referral, investigative assistance and information exchange, subject to
appropriate safeguards for the protection of personal data and other fundamental
rights and freedoms.
Return to top

• add

National Archives and Records Administration

NARA is charged with providing guidance and assistance with respect to records
management and maintaining those records that are of sufficient value to warrant
permanent preservation. Further, NARA establishes general records schedules,
which provide mandatory disposal authorization for temporary administrative
records common to several or all agencies of the federal government. These
include records relating to civilian personnel, fiscal accounting, procurement,
communications, printing and other common functions and certain nontextual
records.
Link to: National Archives and Records Administration
Acronym(s): NARA
Return to top

• add

National Do-Not-Call Registry (U.S.)

Allows U.S. consumers to place their phone number on a national list, preventing
calls from unsolicited telemarketers. This registration is now permanent and can
be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communication
Commission and state attorneys general with up to a $16,000 fine per violation.
Cell phones are protected from any unsolicited automatic-dialed calls through
other FCC regulations.
Link to: National Do-Not-Call Registry
Associated term(s): Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communication
Commission, Do-Not-Call Implementation Act, Do-Not-Call Improvement Act
Return to top

• add

National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education's Cybersecurity

Workforce Framework (NICE)

 The NICE framework establishes common terminology to describe cybersecurity
work and is intended to be applied in all sectors: public, private and academic.
Return to top

• add

National Institute of Standards and Technology

NIST is an agency within the Department of Commerce. NIST has the lead
responsibility for the development and issuance of security standards and
guidelines for the federal government, contractors, and the United States critical
information infrastructure.
The NIST has published a series of publications in support of its risk management
framework (RMF). The RMF is a multi-tiered and structured methodology for
creating a unified information security framework for the federal government in
order to meet the vast array of requirements set forth in FISMA.
Link to: National Institute of Standards and Technology
Acronym(s): NIST
Associated term(s): FISMA
Associated law(s): FISMA
Return to top

• add

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework

NIST is a voluntary risk management tool alongside the NIST Cyber-security

Framework. It provides standard, guidelines and best practices for managing
cybersecurity-related risks and is intended to assist organizations in
communicating and organizing privacy risk as well as rationalizing privacy to
build or evaluate a privacy governance program.
Return to top

• add

National Labor Relations Board, The

A U.S. federal agency that administers the National Labor Relations Act. The
board conducts elections to determine if employees want union representation
and investigates and remedies unfair labor practices by employers and unions.
Link to: National Labor Relations Board
Acronym(s): NLRB
Associated law(s): National Labor Relations Act
Return to top

• add
 National Security Letter

A category of subpoena. The USA PATRIOT Act expanded the use of national
security letters. Separate and sometimes differing statutory provisions now
govern access, without a court order, to communication providers, financial
institutions, consumer credit agencies and travel agencies.
Acronym(s): NSL
Associated law(s): USA-PATRIOT Act
Return to top

• add

Nationwide Consumer Reporting Agency

A consumer reporting agency that regularly assembles, evaluates, and maintains

consumer files on consumers who reside nationwide using public record
information and “credit account information from persons who furnish that
information regularly and in the ordinary course of business.” Such agencies
compile such information to create and disseminate reports about consumer
credit worthiness, credit standing, or credit capacity.
Return to top

• add

Nationwide Specialty Consumer Reporting Agency

A consumer reporting agency that compiles information about consumers on a

nationwide basis related to (1) medical records or payments; (2) residential or
tenant history; (3) check writing history; (4) employment history; or (5)
insurance claims.
Return to top

• add

Natural language generation

Information is transformed into content, enabling such functions as text-to

speech, automation of reports and the production of content for awe or mobile
applications.
Return to top

• add
 Natural language understanding

Utilizes machine reading comprehension through algorithms to identify and

extract natural language that the computer can understand.
Return to top

• add

Necessity

Necessity along with proportionality (see Proportionality), is one of two factors

data controllers should consider as they apply the principle of data minimization
(see Data Minimization), as required by the General Data Protection Regulation.
Necessity considers the amount of data to be collected and whether it is necessary
in relation to the stated purposes for which it is being processed.
Return to top

• add

Negligence

An organization will be liable for damages if it breaches a legal duty to

protect personal information and an individual is harmed by that breach.
Associated term(s): Private Right of Action
Return to top

• add

Network Centricity

The extent to which personal information remains local to the client.

Return to top

• add

Network Devices

The components used to link computers and other devices so they may share files
and utilize other electronic resources, e.g. printers and fax machines. The most
common network devices are those used to create Local Area Networks (LAN),
 which require a hub, router, cable or radio connection devices, network cards,
and (for access to the internet) a modem.
Return to top

• add

Network Encryption

A type of network security that protects data traffic by providing encryption at the
network transfer layer. This form of encryption operates independently of other
security measures and is invisible to the ender user as data is only encrypted
while in transit.
Return to top

• add

Network-Layer Attacks

Attacks that exploit the basic network protocol in order to gain any available
advantage. These attacks generally involve “spoofing” a network address so that a
computer sends data to an intruder rather than their proper recipient or
destination. Other attacks can involve service disruptions through a denial of
service (DOS) attack—a brute force method that overloads the capacity of a
website’s domain to respond to incoming requests such that it renders the server
inoperable.
Return to top

• add

Noise addition

Blurring data to ensue that aggregated data is useful, yet nonspecific enough to
avoid revealing identifiers.
Return to top

• add

Non-Functional System Requirements

Abstracted concepts of the operation of a new software system or product being

developed that inform functional requirements. These requirements describe how
a system should work rather than specific technical processes the system
completes. For example “the system shall be able to create user profiles for
individuals using the system.”
 Associated term(s): Plan-driven Development Model, Agile Development
Model, Functional System Requirements, SRS
Return to top

• add

Non-Public Personal Information

Is defined by GLBA as personally identifiable financial information (i) provided

by a consumer to a financial institution, (ii) resulting from a transaction or
service performed for the consumer, or (iii) otherwise obtained by the financial
institution. Excluded from the definition are (i) publicly available information
and (ii) any consumer list that is derived without using personally identifiable
financial information.
Acronym(s): NPI
Associated law(s): GLBA
Return to top

• add

Non-Repudiation

The ability to ensure that neither the originator nor the receiver in a transaction
can dispute the validity of the transaction or access request. An independent
verification takes place which allows the sender’s identity to be verified, typically
by a third party, and also allows the sender to know that the intended recipient of
the message actually received it. Non-repudiation of origin proves that data has
been sent and non-repudiation of delivery proves that the data has been received.
Return to top

• add

Obfuscation

To make (something) more difficult to understand; to hide the true meaning. For
Data Obfuscation see Data Masking.
Associated term(s): Data Masking
Return to top

• add

Objective Harm
 Measurable and observable, wherein a person's privacy has been violated and a
direct harm is known to exist.
Return to top

• add

OECD Guidelines

First released in 1980, and then updated in 2013, these guidelines represent
perhaps the most widely accepted and circulated set of internationally agreed
upon privacy principles along with guidance for countries as they develop
regulations surrounding cross-border data flows and law-enforcement access to
personal data. The principles, widely emulated in national privacy laws,
include Collection Limitation, Data Quality, Purpose Specification, Use
Limitation, Security Safeguards, Openness, Individual Participation,
and Accountability (see entries for each principle under their own listing
elsewhere in the glossary).
Link to text of: OECD Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and
Transborder Data Flows of Personal Data
Return to top

• add

Office of Management and Budget

Under the Privacy Act, the OMB is charged with the responsibility to supervise
agencies’ implementation of the act’s provisions. In order to perform this task,
the act provides that the director of the OMB shall develop and prescribe
guidelines and regulations, as well as provide assistance and oversight of their
implementation by agencies.
Acronym(s): OMB
Return to top

• add

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Overseeing the intelligence community is the Office of the Director of National

Intelligence. The IRTPA established the director of National Intelligence as the
head of the intelligence community and the principal advisor to the president and
the National Security Council.
Link to: Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Acronym(s): ODNI
Associated law(s): Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
Return to top
• add

OMB Memorandum M-03-22

This memorandum provides agencies with specific implementation guidance for

conducting PIAs and developing website privacy policies. It applies to all
executive branch agencies and departments, contractors and cross-agency
initiatives that use websites or other information technology for interacting with
the public. It requires agencies to: conduct PIAs and make them publicly
available; post privacy policies on agency websites; translate privacy policies into
a standardized machine-readable format; ensure privacy responsibilities are
properly executed for information in identifiable form (IIF) processed by
information technology; report annually to OMB on Section 208 compliance.
Link to text of: OMB Memorandum M-03-22
Associated law(s): Privacy Act
Return to top

• add

Omnibus Laws

Used to distinguish from sectorial laws (see Sectorial Laws), to mean laws that
cover a broad spectrum of organizations or natural persons, rather than simply a
certain market sector or population.
Return to top

• add

One-stop Shop

A colloquial description of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation’s

consistency mechanism that allows a specific Data Protection Authority (see
DPA) to function as a business’s single point of contact—or lead supervisory
authority—for a complaint or investigation. This saves businesses from the need
to potentially engage with DPAs from 28 EU Member States.
Return to top

• add

Online Behavioral Advertising

Websites or online advertising services that engage in the tracking or analysis of

search terms, browser or user profiles, preferences, demographics, online activity,
offline activity, location data, etc., and offer advertising based on that tracking.
 Return to top

• add

Online Data Storage

Refers to the storage of data by a third-party vendor made accessible through the
Internet.(Hosted storage, Internet storage, cloud storage) This is a common data
storage alternative to local storage, such as on a hard drive, and portable storage,
such as a flash drive.
Associated term(s): Cloud Computing
Return to top

• add

Online Privacy Alliance

A coalition composed of numerous online companies and trade associations

specifically established to encourage the self-regulation of online privacy. The
OPA introduced the Online Privacy Guidelines.
Link to: Online Privacy Alliance
Link to: Online Privacy Guidelines
Acronym(s): OPA
Associated term(s): Self-regulation
Return to top

• add

Onward Transfer

A transfer of personal data to a fourth party or beyond. For instance, the first
party is the data subject, the second party is the controller, the third party is the
processor, and the fourth party is a sub-contractor of the processor. In the context
of binding corporate rules, this might mean the third party is another unit of the
controller organization outside of the EEA and the fourth party is a processor. If
an onward transfer occurs, the controller remains accountable for processing of
the personal data.
Return to top

• add

Open Government Directive

 When President Obama entered into office he issued a memorandum calling for
an unprecedented level of openness in government, which launched the Open
Government Initiative. In December 2009, the Director of the OMB issued the
Open Government Directive, which set forth detailed requirements focused on
implementing the president’s vision. The president required the OMB to issue a
directive to federal departments and agencies to take certain steps to implement
the underlying principles of transparency, participation and collaboration
discussed in the president’s memorandum.
Link to: Open Government Initiative
Link to text of: Open Government Directive
Associated term(s): OMB
Return to top

• add

Open-source vs. closed-source

Easily viewed, shared and modified software is considered open-source. Closed-

source software must by fixed and updated by the vendor.
Return to top

• add

Openness

A fair information practices principle. There should be a general policy of

openness about developments, practices and policies with respect to personal
data. Means should be readily available to establish the existence and nature of
personal data, and the main purposes of their use, as well as the identity and
usual residence of the data controller. Closely linked with transparency.
Return to top

• add

Opinions of the Article 29 Working Party

Various opinions of the Article 29 Working Party (see Article 29 Working Party)
continue to be relevant even after the body's transition into the European Data
Protection Board (EDPB). They continue to provide guidance and context as to
the stance of European Union member state regulators in how data protection
law should be interpreted.
Return to top

• add

Opt-In
 One of two central concepts of choice. It means an individual makes an active
affirmative indication of choice; i.e., checking a box signaling a desire to share his
or her information with third parties.
Associated term(s): Choice; Consent; Opt-Out
Return to top

• add

Opt-In (EU specific)

One of two central concepts of choice. It means an individual makes an active

affirmative indication of choice; i.e., checking a box signaling a desire to share his
or her information with third parties. The General Data Protection Regulation's
definition of consent as requiring a "clear affirmative act" makes opt-in the
default standard for consent acquisition.
Return to top

• add

Opt-Out

One of two central concepts of choice. It means an individual’s lack of action

implies that a choice has been made; i.e., unless an individual checks or unchecks
a box, their information will be shared with third parties.
Associated term(s): Choice; Consent; Opt-In
Return to top

• add

Opt-Out (EU Specific)

One of two central concepts of choice. It means an individual’s lack of action

implies that a choice has been made; i.e., unless an individual checks or unchecks
a box, their information will be shared with third parties. The General Data
Protection Regulation's definition of consent as requiring a "clear affirmative act"
makes opt-out unacceptable for the acquisition of consent.
Return to top

• add

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

 An international organization that promotes policies designed to achieve the
highest sustainable economic growth, employment and a rising standard of living
in both member and non-member countries, while contributing to the world
economy.
Link to: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Acronym(s): OECD
Return to top

• add

Outsourcing

Contracting business processes, which may include the processing of personal

information, to a third party.
Return to top

• add

Outsourcing (EU-specific)

Contracting business processes, which may include the processing of personal

information, to a third party. The General Data Protection Regulation establishes
direct legal obligations applicable to service providers acting as "processors" and
places an increased emphasis to the contractual obligations that must be
established between organizations and their data processing service providers.
Return to top

• add

Paperwork Reduction Act

The PRA concerns information that is created, collected, disclosed, maintained,

used, shared, and disseminated by or for the federal government, regardless of
whether it is PII. The primary goal is to calculate and reduce as much as possible
the burden of providing information to the government while maintaining the
quality of that information. The requirements of the PRA cover collections of
information, which may exist in any format, and could include surveys,
applications, questionnaires, and reports or any scenario in which 10 or more
persons are asked to provide the same information within a 12-month period.
Link to text of Act: Paperwork Reduction Act
Acronym(s): PRA
Return to top

• add

Passive Collection
 Collecting data from a data subject that is unaware of such collection.
Associated term(s): Active Collection, First-party Collection, Surveillance
Collection, Repurposing, Third-party Collection
Return to top

• add

Passive Data Collection

Data collection in which information is gathered automatically—often without the

end user’s knowledge—as the user navigates from page to page on a website. This
is typically accomplished through the use of cookies, web beacons or other types
of identification mechanisms.
Associated term(s): Observational Study; Cookie; Web Beacons; Active Data
Collection
Return to top

• add

Patches

Changes to a program that aim to fix, update or improve a system.

Return to top

• add

PCI Data Security Standard

A self-regulatory system that provides an enforceable security standard for

payment card data. The rules were drafted by the Payment Card Industry Security
Standards Council, which built on previous rules written by the various credit
card companies. Except for small companies, compliance with the standard
requires hiring a third party to conduct security assessments and detect
violations. Failure to comply can lead to exclusion from Visa, MasterCard or other
major payment card systems, as well as penalties.
Acronym(s): PCI-DSS
Return to top

• add

PCI Security Standards Council

 The PCI Security Standards Council is a council that is responsible for the
development and management of the Payment Card Industry Security Standards,
most notably the PCI Data Security Standard. The council is made up of
American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard
Worldwide and Visa Inc. and other affiliate members.
Link to: PCI Security Standards Council
Associated term(s): PCI DSS
Return to top

• add

Performance Measurement

The process of formulating or selecting metrics to evaluate implementation,

efficiency or effectiveness; gathering data and producing quantifiable output that
describes performance.
Associated term(s): Metrics
Return to top

• add

Perimeter Controls

Technologies and processes that are designed to secure an entire network

environment by preventing penetration from the outside.
Associated term(s): Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Intrusion Prevention
Systems (IPS), Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
Return to top

• add

Persistent Storage

The storage of data in a non-volatile storage medium such as a hard drive. In the
absence of persistent data storage, data would only be stored in RAM (random
access memory) and would be lost whenever the device lost power.
Associated term(s): Transient Storage
Return to top

• add

Personal Data
 The predominant term for Personal Information in the European Union, defined
broadly in the General Data Protection Regulation as any information relating to
an identified or identifiable natural person.
Associated term(s): Personal Information; Personally Identifying Information;
Personally Identifiable Information
Return to top

• add

Personal Data (EU specific)

Any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person; an

identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly — in
particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors
specific to their physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social
identity.
Return to top

• add

Personal Information

A synonym for "personal data." It is a term with particular meaning under the
California Consumer Privacy Act, which defines it as information that identifies,
relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be
linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer.
Acronym(s): PI
Associated term(s): Personal Data; Personally Identifying Information;
Personally Identifiable Information
Return to top

• add

Personal Information (EU specific)

A synonym for "personal data," which is any information relating to an identified

or identifiable natural person; an identifiable person is one who can be identified,
directly or indirectly — in particular by reference to an identification number or
to one or more factors specific to their physical, physiological, mental, economic,
cultural or social identity.
Return to top

• add

Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act

 A Canadian act with two goals: (1) to instill trust in electronic commerce and
private sector transactions for citizens, and (2) to establish a level playing field
where the same marketplace rules apply to all businesses.
Link to text of law: Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents
Act
Acronym(s): PIPEDA
Return to top

• add

Personally Identifiable Information

Any information about an individual, including any information that can be used
to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as name, social security
number, date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, or biometric records;
and any other information that is linkable to an individual, such as medical,
educational, financial, and employment information.
Return to top

• add

Pharming

Redirecting a valid internet request to a malicious website by modifying a Hosts

file or corrupting a network router domain name system.
Associated term(s): Phishing, Spear Phishing, Whaling
Return to top

• add

Phishing

E-mails or other communications that are designed to trick a user into believing
that he or she should provide a password, account number or other information.
The user then typically provides that information to a website controlled by the
attacker. “Spear phishing” is a phishing attack that is tailored to the individual
user, such as when an e-mail appears to be from the user’s boss, instructing the
user to provide information.
Associated term(s): Spear Phishing; Social Engineering
Return to top

• add

PIA Triggers
 These events constitute triggers for an organization to conduct a privacy impact
assessment: Conversion of records from paper-based to electronic form;
Conversion of information from anonymous to identifiable form; System
management changes involving significant new uses and/or application of new
technologies; Significant merging, matching or other manipulation of multiple
databases containing PII; Application of user-authenticating technology to a
system accessed by members of the public; Incorporation into existing databases
of PII obtained from commercial or public sources; Significant new inter-agency
exchanges or uses of PII; Alteration of a business process resulting in significant
new collection, use and/or disclosure of PII; Alteration of the character of PII due
to the addition of qualitatively new types of PII.
Associated law(s): FISMA
Return to top

• add

Plan-Driven Development Model

A strategy used when creating new software products and systems. Plan-driven
models focus on designing the entirety of the system and system functions before
actual creation of the system, as opposed to the Agile Development Model. An
example of a plan-driven model is the Spiral model.
Associated term(s): Agile Development Model, CONOPS
Return to top

• add

Platform for Privacy Preferences

A machine-readable language that helps to express a website’s data management

practices in an automated fashion.
Acronym(s): P3P
Return to top

• add

Platform for Privacy Preferences Project

A project with the goal of designing web protocols with user privacy in mind.
Several protocols have been developed out of this project including the most
successful, XACML.
Link to: Platform for Privacy Preferences Project
Acronym: P3P
Return to top

• add
 Policy Framework

The repository of all an organization’s rules and procedures for implementing

policies surrounding, for example, privacy and security. It is the natural reference
point for anyone, such as a regulator or auditor, who wants to understand an
organization’s position regarding a particular policy area.
Return to top

• add

Polygraph

A device used for the purpose of rendering a diagnostic opinion regarding an

individual’s honesty.
Associated term(s): Lie Detector
Associated law(s): Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 (EPPA)
Return to top

• add

Polymorphic

The algorithm is mutated with each copy of the code, while the outcome of the
encryption remains the same for any given key.
Return to top

• add

POST Method

The GET and POST HTML method attributes specify how form data is sent to a
web page. The POST method is more secure than GET as the GET method
appends the form data to the URL allowing passwords and other sensitive
information collected in a form to be visible in the browser’s address bar.
Associated term(s): GET Method
Return to top

• add

Postal Marketing
 Direct marketing (see Direct Marketing) to postal addresses.
Associated term(s): Direct Marketing
Return to top

• add

Postal Marketing (EU specific)

Direct marketing (see Direct Marketing) to postal addresses. Just as with other
forms of direct marketing, marketers must ensure they establish the lawful basis
for processing personal data when postal marketing to those in the EEA under the
General Data Protection Regulation.
Return to top

• add

Predictability

Characterizes reliable assumptions about a system particularly its data and the
processing of that data by all stakeholders.
Return to top

• add

Preemption

A superior government’s ability to have its law(s) supersede those of an inferior

government. For example, the U.S. federal government has mandated that no
state government can regulate consumer credit reporting.
Return to top

• add

Premium Advertising

The most expensive and most visible type of web advertising, typically on the
homepage of a website and priced so that only big name companies/products use
them.
Associated term(s): Behavioral Advertising, Contextual Advertising, Demographic
Advertising, Psychographic Advertising, Remnant Advertising
Return to top

• add
 Prior Authorization

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, a processor (see Processor) may
not engage another processor without prior authorization of the data controller
(see Controller). This authorization may be general or specific. If it is general, the
processor is required to give the controller an opportunity to object to the
addition or replacement of other processors.
Associated term(s): Notification; Data Protection Authority
Return to top

• add

Privacy

A nebulous philosophical, legal, social and technological concept which means

different things to different observers. In an influential 1890 Harvard Law Review
article, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, who later became a Supreme Court
Justice, famously defined privacy as “a right to be let alone.” Common areas of
privacy that are of particular interest with regard to data protection and privacy
laws include information privacy, bodily privacy, territorial privacy, and
communications privacy.
Four main areas of privacy are of particular interest with regard to data
protection and privacy laws and practices: information privacy, bodily
privacy, territorial privacy, and communications privacy.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Act Exceptions

Among the exception to the Privacy Act of 1974 are: (1) Performance of regular
duties of an agency employee; (2) FOIA disclosures; (3) Routine uses as specified
in the applicable SORN; (4) Census Bureau census or survey functions; (5)
Statistical research if not individually identifiable; (6) Data held by the National
Archives; (7) Law enforcement activity; (8) Compelling health or safety
circumstances; (9) Congressional committee with appropriate jurisdiction; (10)
GAO duties; (11) Court order, and (12) Consumer reporting agencies.
Associated term(s): The Privacy Act of 1974

Return to top

• add

Privacy Act of 1974

 A U.S. law that regulates the federal government’s use of computerized databases
of information about U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents. It also
establishes fair information practices that each agency must follow when
collecting, using or disclosing personal information, including rights of citizen
action and redress for violations. It guarantees that U.S. citizens and lawful
permanent residents have: (1) the right to see records about themselves that are
maintained by the federal government (provided that information is not subject
to one or more of the Privacy Act's exemptions); (2) the right to amend
inaccurate, irrelevant, untimely or incomplete records; and (3) the right to sue
the government for failure to comply with its requirements. It also contains fair
information practices that: (1) require that information about a person be
collected from that person to the greatest extent practicable; (2) require agencies
to ensure that their records are relevant, accurate, timely and complete, and (3)
prohibit agencies from maintaining information describing how an individual
exercises his or her First Amendment rights (unless the individual consents to it,
it is permitted by statute or is within the scope of an authorized law enforcement
investigation).
Link to text of law: Privacy Act
Return to top

• add

Privacy Act, The (Canadian)

Enacted in 1983, the Act sets out rules for how institutions of the federal
government must deal with personal information of individuals. It has been
revised by many minor amendments, but remains substantially unaltered.
Link to text of law: The Canadian Privacy Act
Return to top

• add

Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board

PCLOB is an independent, bipartisan agency within the executive branch

established by the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act,
Pub. L. 110-53, signed into law in August 2007. Comprised of four part-time
members and a full-time chairman, PCLOB is vested with two fundamental
authorities: (1) To review and analyze actions the executive branch takes to
protect the Nation from terrorism, ensuring the need for such actions is balanced
with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties and (2) To ensure that liberty
concerns are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of
laws, regulations, and policies related to efforts to protect the Nation against
terrorism.
Acronym(s): PCLOB
Link to: Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
Link to text of law: Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act,
Pub. L. 110-53
 Return to top

• add

Privacy Assessment

An assessment of an organization’s compliance with its privacy policies and

procedures, applicable laws, regulations, service-level agreements, standards
adopted by the entity and other contracts. The assessment or audit measures how
closely the organization’s practices align with its legal obligations and stated
practices and may rely on subjective information such as employee
interviews/questionnaires and complaints received, or objective standards, such
as information system logs or training and awareness attendance and test scores.
Audits and assessments may be conducted internally by an audit function or by
external third parties. It is also common in some jurisdictions for the
privacy/data protection officer to conduct assessments. The results of the
assessment or audit are documented for management sign-off, and analyzed to
develop recommendations for improvement and a remediation plan. Resolution
of the issues and vulnerabilities noted are then monitored to ensure appropriate
corrective action is taken on a timely basis. While assessments and audits may be
conducted on a regular or scheduled basis, they may also arise ad hoc as the
result of a privacy or security event or due to a request from an enforcement
authority.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Breach (Canadian)

A privacy breach occurs when there is unauthorized access, collection, use or

disclosure of personal information. Such activity is “unauthorized” if it occurs in
contravention of applicable privacy legislation, such as PIPEDA or similar
provincial privacy legislation.
Associated term(s): Data Breach, Privacy Breach Response (Canadian)
Return to top

• add

Privacy Breach Response (Canadian)

The guidelines for privacy breach responses were drafted in 2007 and consist of
four steps: (1) Containment of the breach and preliminary assessment; (2)
evaluating the associated risks; (3) notifying affected parties; (4) taking adequate
steps to prevent future breaches.
Associated term(s): Data Breach, Privacy Breach (Canadian)
Return to top
• add

Privacy by Design

Generally regarded as a synonym for Data Protection by Design (see Data

Protection by Design). However, Privacy by Design as a specific term was first
outlined in a framework in the mid-1990s by then-Information and Privacy
Commissioner of Ontario, Canada, Ann Cavoukian, with seven foundational
principles.
Acronym(s): PbD
Return to top

• add

Privacy Champion

An executive who serves as the privacy program sponsor and acts as an advocate
to further foster privacy as a core organization concept.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Commissioner of Canada

The individual who is mandated by PIPEDA to enforce the act. The commissioner
has broad power to examine documents, but some documents may be shielded by
solicitor-client privilege. The commissioner conducts investigations under a cloak
of confidentiality, but public reports with non-binding recommendations are
ultimately issued. This individual is mandated by PIPEDA to enforce PIPEDA.
Aggrieved individuals also have a right to complain to the commissioner.
Link to: Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Associated law(s): PIPEDA
Return to top

• add

Privacy engineering

Encompasses how privacy values and principles are applied in technology

systems and programs while recognizing and maintaining security levels to
mitigate risk. It brings the complementary perspectives and practices of software
engineers and privacy professionals together.
Return to top
• add

Privacy Impact Assessment

“An analysis of how information is handled: (i) to ensure handling conforms to

applicable legal, regulatory and policy requirements regarding privacy; (ii) to
determine the risks and effects of collecting, maintaining and disseminating
information in identifiable form in an electronic information system, and (iii) to
examine and evaluate protections and alternative processes for handling
information to mitigate potential privacy risks.” PIAs should disclose what PII is
being collected, why it is being collected, what the intended uses of the PII are,
whom the PII will be shared with, what opportunities individuals will have to opt-
out of PII collection or use, how the PII will be secured, whether a system of
records is being created under the Privacy Act and an analysis of the information
life cycle. Checklists or tools used to ensure that the system used to
collect personal information is evaluated for privacy risks, designed with lifecycle
principles in mind and made to ensure that effective and required privacy
protection measures are used. A PIA should be completed pre-implementation of
the privacy project, product, or service and should be ongoing through its
deployment. The PIA should identify these attributes of the data collected: what
information is collected; why it is collected; the intended use of the information;
with whom the information is shared, and the consent and choice rights of
the data subjects. The PIA should be used to assess new systems, significant
changes to existing systems, operational policies and procedures and intended
use of the information. PIAs should also be used before, during, and after mergers
and acquisitions. An effective PIA evaluates the sufficiency of privacy practices
and policies with respect to existing legal, regulatory and industry standards, and
maintains consistency between policy and operational practices.
Acronym(s): PIAs
Return to top

• add

Privacy Impact Assessments (Canadian)

The Canadian government requires all government institutions subject to

the Privacy Act to conduct these assessments. The purpose behind a PIA is to
evaluate whether program and service delivery initiatives that involve the
collection, use or disclosure of personal information are in compliance with
statutory obligations.
Acronym(s): PIAs
Return to top

• add

Privacy Maturity Model

 Provides a standardized reference for companies to use in assessing the level of
maturity of their privacy programs.
Acronym(s): PMM
Return to top

• add

Privacy Notice

A statement made to a data subject that describes how an organization collects,

uses, retains and discloses personal information. A privacy notice may be referred
to as a privacy statement, a fair processing statement or, sometimes, a privacy
policy. Numerous global privacy and data protection laws require privacy notices.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Notice (EU specific)

A statement made to a data subject that describes how an organization collects,

uses, retains and discloses personal information. A privacy notice may be referred
to as a privacy statement, a fair processing statement or, sometimes, a privacy
policy. The General Data Protection Regulation requires a controller to provide a
privacy notice prior to processing and to specify in the privacy notice the legal
basis for the processing, in addition to other details, such as the contact
information for the organization's Data Protection Officer. When relying on the
legitimate interest ground, the controller must describe the legitimate interests
pursued.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Nutrition Label

A standard form label intended to make privacy policies easily and quickly
understandable. Privacy Nutrition Labels where developed by the Cylab Usable
Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) at Carnegie Mellon University.
Link to: Cylab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory
Associated term(s): Privacy Policy
Return to top

• add

Privacy of the Person

 Protects bodily integrity, and in particular the right not to have our bodies
touched or explored to disclose objects or matters we wish to conceal.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Officer

A general term in many organizations for the head of privacy compliance and
operations. In the United States federal government, however, it is a more
specific term for the official responsible for the coordination and implementation
of all privacy and confidentiality efforts within a department or component. This
official may be statutorily mandated as a political appointment, as in the
Department of Homeland Security, or a career professional.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Operational Life Cycle

Focused on refining and improving privacy processes, this model continuously

monitors and improves the privacy program, with the added benefits of a life
cycle approach to measure (assess), improve (protect), evaluate (sustain) and
support (respond), and then start again.
Associated term(s): Assess; Protect; Sustain; Respond
Return to top

• add

Privacy Patterns

Based on the concept of “Design Patterns” developed by Erich Gamma, Richard

Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides, Privacy Patterns are a set of solutions
to common privacy problems in designing software. Each Privacy Pattern
describes a privacy concern that occurs when developing software and a uniform
way to alleviate that concern.
Associated term(s): UML, Plan-driven Development Model, Agile Development
Model
Return to top

• add

Privacy Policy
 An internal statement that governs an organization or entity’s handling of
personal information. It is directed at those members of the organization who
might handle or make decisions regarding the personal information, instructing
them on the collection, use, storage and destruction of the data, as well as any
specific rights the data subjects may have. May also be referred to as a data
protection policy.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Policy in Standardized Machine-Readable Format

Defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-03-22,

“[a] statement about site privacy practices written in a standard computer
language (not English text) that can be read automatically by a web browser.”
Link to text of Memo: U.S. Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-
03-22
Return to top

• add

Privacy Program Framework

An implementation roadmap that provides the structure or checklists

(documented privacy procedures and processes) to guide the privacy professional
through privacy management and prompts them for the details to determine all
privacy-relevant decisions for the organization.
Return to top

• add

Privacy Review

An analysis of all new projects for their compliance with the privacy
standard and privacy policy of an organization. Reviews should be performed
multiple times beginning at the early stages of new project development to
minimize potential privacy risks.
Associated term(s): Privacy Standard, Privacy Policy, Privacy by Design, Privacy
Risk
Return to top

• add

Privacy Risk
 A formula to calculate the impact of a new project on the privacy of the consumer
base that will use the new systems. To evaluate the risk, one must consider the
likelihood of the threat occurring, multiplied by the potential impact if the threat
occurs. It may be difficult to quantify, so a comparison between projects may be
the best way to understand privacy risks.
Associated term(s): Privacy Standard, Privacy Policy, Privacy by Design, Privacy
Review
Return to top

• add

Privacy Rule, The

Under HIPAA, this rule establishes U.S. national standards to protect individuals’
medical records and other personal health information and applies to health
plans, healthcare clearinghouses and those healthcare providers that conduct
certain healthcare transactions electronically. The rule requires appropriate
safeguards to protect the privacy of personal health information and sets limits
and conditions on the uses and disclosures that may be made of such information
without patient authorization. The rule also gives patients’ rights over their health
information, including rights to examine and obtain a copy of their health records
and to request corrections.
Link to text of rule: Privacy Rule
Associated law(s): HIPAA
Return to top

• add

Privacy Standard

The minimum level at which privacy should be protected in all new projects,
applications and services. This includes the expectations of privacy in the new
programs and guidelines for adherence to those standards. The standard is set
based on both internal organizational policy and external regulations etc.
Associated term(s): Privacy by Design, Privacy Review, Privacy Policy, Privacy
Risk
Return to top

• add

Privacy Technlologist

A term used to reference the many technology professionals that play a role in
protecting privacy in or with technology. Includes but is not limited to: audit, risk
and compliance managers; data professionals; data architects; data scientists,
system designers and developers; software engineers, privacy engineers.
 Return to top

• add

Privacy Threshold Analysis

One tool used to determine whether a PIA should be conducted.

Acronym(s): PTA
Return to top

• add

Privacy-Enhancing Technologies

Privacy technology standards developed solely to be used for the transmission,

storage and use of privacy data. Examples include Platform for Privacy
Preferences (P3P) and Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language (EPAL).
Acronym(s): PETs
Return to top

• add

Private Right of Action

Unless otherwise restricted by law, any individual that is harmed by a violation of

the law can file a lawsuit against the violator.
Associated term(s): Negligence
Return to top

• add

Professional Regulatory Body

A body enacted pursuant to an act under which a professional or occupational

group or discipline is organized and that provides for the membership in the
regulation of the members of the professional or occupation group or discipline,
including the registration, competence, conduct, practice and discipline of its
members.
Return to top

• add

Profiling
 Any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of
personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects, in particular to analyze or
predict aspects concerning that person's performance at work, economic
situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or
movements.
Return to top

• add

Programmatic Buying

Buying through automated means, for example, by setting up a campaign in an

RTB exchange or other automated system.
Return to top

• add

Proportionality

Proportionality, along with necessity (see Necessity), is one of two factors data
controllers should consider as they apply the principle of data minimization
(see Data Minimization), as required by the General Data Protection Regulation.
Proportionality considers the amount of data to be collected and whether it is
adequate and relevant in relation to the purposes for which it is being processed.
Is the processing suitable and reasonably likely to achieve the stated objectives?
Are any adverse consequences that the processing creates justified in view of the
importance of the objective pursued?
Associated law(s): EU Data Protection Directive
Return to top

• add

Protect

The second of four phases of the privacy operational life cycle. It provides the
data life cycle, information security practices and Privacy by Design principles to
“protect” personal information.
Associated term(s): Privacy Operational Life Cycle; Assess; Sustain; Respond
Return to top

• add

Protect America Act, The

 The PAA restored FISA to its original focus of protecting the rights of persons in
the United States, while not acting as an obstacle to gathering foreign intelligence
on targets located in foreign countries. The act also modernized FISA in four
important ways: It clarifies FISA’s definition of electronic surveillance; It
provides a role for the FISA court in reviewing the procedures the intelligence
community uses to ensure that collection remains direct at persons located
overseas; It provides a mechanism for the FISA court to direct third parties to
assist the intelligence community in its collection efforts, and; it protects third
parties from private lawsuits arising from assistance they provide the government
in authorized foreign intelligence activities targeting individuals located outside
the United States.
Link to text of law: Protect America Act
Acronym(s): PAA
Associated term(s): FISA
Associated law(s): FISA
Return to top

• add

Protected Health Information

Any individually identifiable health information transmitted or maintained in any

form or medium that is held by an entity covered by the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act or its business associate; identifies the
individual or offers a reasonable basis for identification; is created or received by
a covered entity or an employer; and relates to a past, present or future physical
or mental condition, provision of healthcare or payment for healthcare to that
individual.
Acronym(s): PHI
Return to top

• add

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

Criminalizes cyber bullying and loosens restraints on police to obtain warrants

for telecommunications and internet data, as well as allows police to compel the
preservation of electronic evidence.
Link to text of law: Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act
Return to top

• add

Protective Order
 With a protective order, a judge determines what information should not be made
public and what conditions apply to who may access the protected information.
Associated term(s): Redaction
Return to top

• add

Pseudonymisation

The processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no
longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional
information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is
subject to technical and organizational measures to ensure that the personal data
are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person.
Return to top

• add

Pseudonymous Data

Data points which are not directly associated with a specific individual. The
identity of the person is not known but multiple appearances of that person can
be linked together. Uses an ID rather than PII to identify data as coming from the
same source. IP address, GUID and ticket numbers are forms of pseudonymous
values.
Associated term(s): Identifiability, Identifiers, GUID, Authentication, De-
Identification, Re-Identification.
Return to top

• add

Psychographic Advertising

Based on a user’s interest as accounted for by their preferences online. Different

from behavioral because it simply accounts for known preferences rather than
taking into account different interactions with web pages and advertisements.
Associated term(s): Behavioral Advertising, Contextual Advertising, Demographic
Advertising, Premium Advertising, Remnant Advertising
Return to top

• add

Public Interest
 One of the six legal bases for processing personal data outlined by the General
Data Protection Regulation is processing necessary for the performance of a task
carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in
the controller.
Return to top

• add

Public Key Infrastructure

A system of digital certificates, authorities and other registration entities that

verifies the authenticity of each party involved in an electronic transaction
through the use of cryptography.
Acronym(s): PKI
Associated term(s): Cryptography
Return to top

• add

Public Records

Information collected and maintained by a government entity and available to the

general public.
Return to top

• add

Public Records (EU specific)

Information collected and maintained by a government entity and available to the

general public. In the General Data Protection Regulation, one of the derogations
left to member states is an allowance for restrictions on certain data subject
rights, such as the right to erasure, for the keeping of public records kept for
reasons of general public interest.
Return to top

• add

Publicity Given to Private Life

A U.S. common law tort that states: “One who gives publicity to a matter
concerning the private life of another is subject to liability to the other for
invasion of his privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that (a) would be
 highly offensive to a reasonable person and (b) is not of legitimate concern to the
public.” (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D)
Link to text of: Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652D
Associated term(s): Common Law
Return to top

• add

Publicly Available Information

Information that is generally available to a wide range of persons. Some

traditional examples include names and addresses in telephone books and
information published in newspapers or other public media. Today, search
engines are a major source of publicly available information.
Return to top

• add

Purpose Limitation

A fair information practices principle, part of the original OECD Guidelines, and a
piece of many privacy and data protection regulations, this is the principle that
the purposes for which personal data are collected should be specified no later
than at the time of data collection and the subsequent use of that personal data is
limited to the fulfillment of those purposes or such others as are not incompatible
with those purposes and as are specified to the individual on each occasion of
change of purpose, or for which there is a further legal basis that would not
require notification.
Associated term(s): Principle of Finality
Associated law(s): EU Data Protection Directive
Return to top

• add

Purpose Specification

See "Purpose Limitation".

Associated term(s): FIPs
Return to top

• add

Qualified Protective Order

 Requires that the parties are prohibited from using or disclosing protected health
information for any purpose other than the litigation and that the PHI will be
returned or destroyed at the end of the litigation.
Acronym(s): QPO
Associated law(s): HIPAA
Associated terms: PHI
Return to top

• add

Quality Attributes

Concerns in software development that cannot be alleviated with a single design

element or function. Privacy is an example of a quality attribute that can be
divided up into further quality attributes (think about the Fair Information
Practices). Using Privacy by Design in all software development allows these
quality attributes to be accounted for in all system functions as they are being
developed.
Associated term(s): Privacy by Design, Fair Information Practices
Return to top

• add

Quantum encryption

Uses the principles of quantum mechanics to encrypt messages in a way that

prevents anyone other than the intended recipient from reading them.
Return to top

• add

Radio-Frequency Identification

Technologies that use radio waves to identify people or objects carrying encoded
microchips.
Acronym(s): RFID
Return to top

• add

Random Testing
 Substance testing sometimes required by law, prohibited in certain jurisdictions,
but acceptable where used on existing employees in specific, narrowly defined
jobs, such as those in highly regulated industries where the employee has a
severely diminished expectation of privacy or where testing is critical to public
safety or national security.
Associated term(s): Substance Testing
Return to top

• add

Re-identification

The action of reattaching identifying characteristics to pseudonymized or de-

identified data (see De-identification and Pseudonymization) . Often invoked as a
“risk of re-identification” or “re-identification risk,” which refers to nullifying the
de-identification actions previously applied to data (see De-identification).
Associated term(s): De-identification; Anonymization; Anonymous
Data, Pseudonymous Data
Return to top

• add

REAL ID Act

The REAL ID Act of 2005 is a nationwide effort intended to prevent terrorism,

reduce fraud and improve the reliability and accuracy of identification documents
issued by U.S. state governments. The act has many varying provisions, but the
one generating the most interest and controversy concerns the establishment and
implementation of national standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and non-
driver ID cards. On January 11, 2008, the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security issued a final rule establishing the minimum-security standards for
state-issued identification cards. The new standards purportedly enhance the
card’s integrity and reliability, strengthen issuance capabilities, increase security
at card-production facilities and reduce state implementation costs.
Link to text of law: REAL ID Act of 2005
Return to top

• add

Reasonable Suspicion

A determining factor in substance testing where testing is allowed as a condition

of continued employment if there is “reasonable suspicion” of drug or alcohol use
based on specific facts as well as rational inferences from those facts; i.e.,
appearance, behavior, speech, odors.
Associated term(s): Substance Testing
 Return to top

• add

Record-Keeping Obligation

Article 30 of the General Data Protection Regulation specifies circumstances that

will trigger the record-keeping obligation. These include, for organizations of 250
or more employees, all processing of personal data. Or, regardless of the
organization’s size, controllers and processors are obligated to keep records of the
processing if it is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of data
subjects; is not occasional; or includes special categories of data or data relating
to criminal convictions and offences.
Return to top

• add

Rectification

An individual’s right to have personal data about them corrected or amended by a

business or other organization if it is inaccurate.
Associated term(s): Access
Associated law(s): EU Data Protection Directive; FCRA
Return to top

• add

Rectification (EU specific)

Closely intertwined with access, rectification is the right or ability of a data

subject to correct erroneous information that is stored about them. Under the
General Data Protection Regulation, data subjects have the right to rectification
of inaccurate personal data, and controllers must ensure that inaccurate or
incomplete data is erased, amended or rectified.
Return to top

• add

Red Flags Rule

A regulation created by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under the authority
of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003. This regulation
requires financial institutions and creditors to implement measures to detect and
 prevent identity theft. The original FTC rule was circumscribed by the Red Flag
Program Clarification Act of 2010, which limited the definition of “creditors” to
exclude any creditor “that advances funds on the behalf of a person for expenses
incidental to a service.” The act in effect allowed lawyers, some doctors and other
service type companies to avoid implementing Red Flag credit measures.
Link to text of law: Red Flag Program Clarification Act of 2010
Associated term(s): Federal Trade Commission
Associated law(s): Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003
Return to top

• add

Redaction

The practice of identifying and removing or blocking information from

documents being produced pursuant to a discovery request or as evidence in a
court proceeding. Specifically, attorneys are required to redact documents so that
no more than the following information is included in court filings: (1) The last
four digits of the Social Security number and taxpayer-identification number; (2)
the year of the individual’s birth; (3) if the individual is a minor, only the minor’s
initials, and (4) the last four digits of the financial account number.
Associated term(s): Protective Order
Return to top

• add

Remarketing

An advertising strategy that leverages information learned from an initial

consumer interaction to market to the same consumer multiple times in a digital
or physical environment.
Return to top

• add

Remedies, Liability and Penalties

Chapter VII of the General Data Protection Regulation outlines the remedies
available to data subjects and their right to compensation, the liability for damage
caused by processing for both controllers and processors, and the penalties
available to supervisory authorities for infringement of the law.
Return to top

• add

Remnant Advertising
 The most basic, stripped down form of web advertising that occurs when no data
about the user or webpage is available. Advertising of this sort has no
personalization.
Associated term(s): Behavioral Advertising, Contextual Advertising, Demographic
Advertising, Psychographic Advertising, Premium Advertising
Return to top

• add

Repurposing

Taking information collected for one purpose and using it for another purpose
later on.
Associated term(s): Active Collection, First-party Collection, Passive
Collection, Surveillance Collection, Third-party Collection
Return to top

• add

Resilience

The ability to withstand and recover from threats. The General Data Protection
Regulation requires that controllers and processors, in proportion to risk, be able
to ensure the resilience of processing systems and services.
Return to top

• add

Respond

The fourth of four phases of the privacy operational life cycle. It includes the
respond principles of information requests, legal compliance, incident-response
planning and incident handling. The “respond” phase aims to reduce
organizational risk and bolster compliance to regulations.
Associated term(s): Privacy Operational Life Cycle; Assess; Protect; Sustain
Return to top

• add

Retargeting

A type of online advertising where visitors to a website are targeted with ads
related to that website as they browse elsewhere. The most common form of
 retargeting is a digital advertising network, which leverages retargeting to display
advertisements to a user related to a website previously visited by the user across
all third-party websites in a network.
Return to top

• add

Retention

Within the information life cycle, the concept that organizations should retain
personal information only as long as necessary to fulfill the stated purpose.
Return to top

• add

Retention (EU specific)

Within the information life cycle the concept that organizations should retain
personal information only as long as necessary to fulfill the stated purpose. Under
the General Data Protection Regulation, the "right to be forgotten" exists where
the personal data is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it
was collected or otherwise processed, where a data subject has withdrawn their
consent or objects to the processing of personal data concerning them, or where
the processing of their personal data does not otherwise comply with the GDPR,
unless there are other legal obligations or reasons of the public interest to retain
their personal data.
Return to top

• add

Return on Investment

An indicator used to measure the financial gain/loss (or “value”) of a project in

relation to its cost. Privacy ROI defines metrics to measure the effectiveness of
investments to protect investments in assets.
Acronym(s): ROI
Return to top

• add

Right Not To Be Subject to Fully Automated Decisions

Under Article 15 of the Data Protection Directive, individuals are entitled to

object to being subject to fully automated decisions. The right, however, does not
 allow an individual to object to automated processing that then leads to a human
decision.
Associated law(s): EU Data Protection Directive
Return to top

• add

Right of Access

An individual’s right to request and receive their personal data from a business or
other organization.
Return to top

• add

Right To Be Forgotten

An individual’s right to have their personal data deleted by a business or other

organization possessing or controlling that data.
Associated term(s): le droit à l’oubli; right of oblivion
Return to top

• add

Right To Correct

The right for individuals to correct or amend information about themselves that
is inaccurate.
Return to top

• add

Right to Deletion

An individual’s right to have their personal data deleted by a business or other

organization possessing or controlling that data.
Return to top

• add

Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978

 Governs the release of customer financial information to federal government
authorities. The act defines both the circumstances under which a financial
institution can volunteer information about customers’ financial records to
federal government authorities and the applicable procedures and requirements
to follow when the federal government is requesting customers’ financial
information.
Link to text of law: Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978
Acronym(s): RFPA
Return to top

• add

Right to No Sale

An individual’s right to prohibit or restrict the transfer of information for value

from a business to a third party.
Return to top

• add

Right to Object

An individual’s right to object to the processing of their personal data by a

business or other organization. An entity is obligated to review an individual’s
objection and respond to it.
Return to top

• add

Right To Object to Automated Decision-Making

In the General Data Protection Regulation, the right not to be subject to

automated decision-making applies if such a decision is based solely on
automated processing and produces legal effects concerning the data subject or
similarly significantly affects them. If a decision-making process falls within these
parameters, the underlying processing of personal data is only allowed if it is
authorized by law, necessary for the preparation and execution of a contract, or
done with the data subject’s explicit consent, provided that the controller has put
sufficient safeguards in place.
Return to top

• add

Right to Privacy, The

 An 1890 law review article by Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren arguing that
privacy is the right to be left alone, and that the violation of this right should give
rise to a tort.
Link to article: Right to Privacy
Associated term(s): Right To Be Forgotten
Return to top

• add

Right to Restriction

An individual’s right to limit or prohibit a business or other organization from

processing their personal data.
Return to top

• add

Risk Assessment Factors

The following constitute risk assessment factors: Number of breaches; number of

outages; unauthorized access; lost assets; software viruses; investigations.
Return to top

• add

Role-Based Access Controls

Access policies that espouse the view that no employee should have greater
information access than is necessary to capably perform his or her job function.
Return to top

• add

RSA Encryption

RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) is the most common

internet encryption and authentication system. The system used an algorithm
that involves multiplying two large prime numbers to generate a public key, used
to encrypt data and decrypt an authentication, and a private key, used to decrypt
the data and encrypt an authentication.
Associated term(s): Encryption
Return to top
• add

Run time behavior monitoring

Monitoring and analyzing usage and data collected from a running system.
Return to top

• add

Safe Harbor

See EU-U.S. Safe Harbor Agreement

Return to top

• add

Sarbanes-Oxley Act

A United States law, passed in 2002, regulating the transparency of publicly held
companies. In particular, public companies must establish a way for the company
to confidentially receive and deal with complaints about actual or potential fraud
from misappropriation of assets and/or material misstatements in financial
reporting from so-called "whistle-blowers."
Link to text of law: Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Acronym(s): SOX
Related term(s): Whistle-Blowing
Return to top

• add

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (EU specific)

A United States law, passed in 2002, regulating the transparency of publicly held
companies. In particular, public companies must establish a way for the company
to confidentially receive and deal with complaints about actual or potential fraud
from misappropriation of assets and/or material misstatements in financial
reporting from so-called "whistle-blowers." U.S. companies with EU subsidiaries
or affiliates are bound by both SOX and EU data protection law, thus potentially
leading to conflicting obligations, specifically in regards to protecting the identity
of the whistle-blower (SOX) vs. protecting the personal data of the employee
accused of wrongdoing (EU data protection law).
Return to top
• add

Schrems I

Colloquial term for Schrems v. Data Protection Commission (Ireland). See "Max
Schrems." After revelations by Edward Snowden of NSA surveillance in the U.S.
allegedly involving Facebook’s cooperation, Schrems complained to the Irish DPC
that Facebook Ireland, the company’s European subsidiary, was improperly
transferring his data to the U.S. where it could be accessed by the NSA. The data
transfers from Facebook Ireland to the U.S. were allowed under the Safe Harbor
adequacy decision. However, because Safe Harbor did not limit such U.S.
government access for national security purposes, the CJEU (see "CJEU") struck
down the Safe Harbor agreement as inconsistent with the European right to
privacy. As a result, adequacy is based on the concept of essential equivalence:
There must be an adequate level of protection of personal data essentially
equivalent to the protection of personal data in the EU.
Return to top

• add

Schrems II (aka Schrems 2.0)

Colloquial term for Data Protection Commission (Ireland) v. Facebook &

Schrems. See "Max Schrems." Being considered by the CJEU (see "CJEU") at the
time of this writing, the case challenges the validity of standard contractual
clauses for the transfer of personal data from the EU to the United States, on the
same grounds Schrems used to challenge the Safe Harbor adequacy agreement
(see "Schrems I").
Return to top

• add

Seal Programs

Programs that require participants to abide by codes of information practices and

submit to monitoring to ensure compliance. In return, companies that abide by
the terms of the seal program are allowed to display the programs seal on their
website.
Associated term(s): Self-regulatory Model, WebTrust
Return to top

• add

Secondary use
 Using an individual's information without consent for purposes unrelated to the
original reasons for which it was collected.
Return to top

• add

Secret Key

“A cryptographic key used with a secret key cryptographic algorithm, uniquely

associated with one or more entities and which shall not be made public. The use
of the term "secret" in this context does not imply a classification level, rather the
term implies the need to protect the key from disclosure or substitution.” (Federal
Information Processing Standards Publication 140-1, Security Requirements for
Cryptographic Modules)
Return to top

• add

Section 208 of the E-Government Act

Section 208 requires agency website privacy policies to include the following
information: what information is to be collected through use of the website; why
the information is being collected; the intended use by the agency of the
information; with whom the information will be shared; what notices or
opportunities for consent will be provided; how the information will be secured;
the rights of individuals under the Privacy Act and other privacy laws.
Link to text of law: Section 208 of the E-Government Act
Link to text of law: E-Government Act
Associated term(s): E-Government Act

Return to top

• add

Sectoral Laws/Model

Laws that exist only in areas where the legislative body has found a particular
need.
Related term(s) Comprehensive Laws, Co-regulatory Model, Self-regulatory
Model, Technology Based Model
Return to top

• add

Sectorial Laws
 Used to distinguish from omnibus laws (see Omnibus Laws), to mean laws that
cover a a specific market sector or population, rather than a broad portion of the
market or citizenry.
Return to top

• add

Secure Sockets Layer

A protocol for establishing a secure connection for transmission that facilitates

much of the online commerce that occurs on the Internet today. For example,
HTTPS, a secure form of HTTP, is an SSL application used in password
exchanges or e-commerce. “The primary goal of the SSL protocol is to provide
privacy and reliability between two communicating applications.” The protocol
has three main properties: (1) The connection is private; (2) the peer’s identity
can be authenticated using asymmetric, or public key, cryptography, and (3) the
connection is reliable.
Acronym(s): SSL
Related term(s): HTTP, HTTPS, TLS
Return to top

• add

Security Policy

Encompasses internal security measures such as the prevention of unauthorized

or unnecessary access to corporate data or resources. Includes intellectual
property, financial data and personal information. Physical security measures,
such as locks, safes, cameras and fences are security measures that protect
against both internal and external threats.
Return to top

• add

Security Safeguards

A fair information practices principle, it is the principle that personal data should
be protected by reasonable security safeguards against such risks as loss or
unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure of data.
Return to top

• add

Sedona Conference
 An important source of standards and best practices for managing electronic
discovery compliance through data retention policies. Regarding email retention,
the Sedona Conference offers four key guidelines:

1. Email retention policies should be administered by interdisciplinary teams

composed of participants across a diverse array of business units;
2. such teams should continually develop their understanding of the policies
and practices in place and identify the gaps between policy and practice;
3. interdisciplinary teams should reach consensus as to policies while looking
to industry standards;
4. technical solutions should meet and parallel the functional requirements of
the organization.

Link to: Sedona Conference

Associated term(s): Data retention, e-Discovery
Return to top

• add

Self-Regulation Model, The

Self-regulation refers to stakeholder-based models for ensuring privacy. The term

“self-regulation” can refer to any or all of three pieces: legislation, enforcement
and adjudication. Legislation refers to question of who defines privacy rules. For
self-regulation, this typically occurs through the privacy policy of a company or
other entity, or by an industry association. Enforcement refers to the question of
who should initiate enforcement action. Actions may be brought by data
protection authorities, other government agencies, industry code enforcement or,
in some cases, the affected individuals. Finally, adjudication refers to the question
of who should decide whether an organization has violated a privacy rule. The
decision maker can be an industry association, a government agency or a judicial
officer. These examples illustrate that the term “self-regulation” covers a broad
range of institutional arrangements. For a clear understanding of data privacy
responsibilities, privacy professionals should consider who defines the
requirements, which organization brings enforcement action and who actually
makes the judicial decisions.
Associated term(s): Comprehensive Laws, Co-regulatory Model, Online Privacy
Alliance, Sectoral Laws, Seal Programs, Technology Based Model
Return to top

• add

Semayne’s Case

A case recognized as establishing the "knock-and-announce rule," an important

concept relating to privacy in one's home and Fourth Amendment search and
seizure jurisprudence in the U.S.
Link to: Fourth Amendment
 Return to top

• add

Senate (Canadian)

One of two chambers of the Canadian Parliament, along with the House of
Commons. Unlike the House of Commons, whose members are elected, the
Senate is appointed by the governor in council based upon the recommendations
of the prime minister.
Associated term(s): Canadian Parliament, House of Commons
Return to top

• add

Senior Agency Official for Privacy

Under OMB Memorandum M-05-08, each executive agency should identify the
senior official who has agency-wide responsibility for information privacy. The
agency’s chief information officer (CIO) may perform this role, or it may be
performed by another senior official at the assistant secretary or equivalent level.
Agencies are also advised that the official given this role should have the authority
to address information privacy policy issues at a national and agency-wide level.
The official has overall responsibility and accountability for ensuring the agency’s
implementation of information privacy protections, including full compliance
with federal laws, regulations and policies relating to information security, such
as the Privacy Act.
Link to text of: Memorandum M-05-08
Acronym(s): SAOP
Return to top

• add

Sensitive Personal Information

Data which is more significantly related to the notion of a reasonable expectation

of privacy, such as medical or financial information. However, data may be
considered more or less sensitive depending on context or jurisdiction. Recently
the U.S. Federal Trade Commission classified TV-viewing data as "sensitive."
Acronym(s): SPI
Return to top

• add

Separate
 Separating personal data during processing to prevent correlating information
that may lead to the identification of the individual. This is done via processing
data in physically separate locations (distribute) or isolating the data by
processing personal data that is used for different purposes in separate databases.
Return to top

• add

Single-Factor Authentication

The standard authentication mechanism that requires a user name and password
for access.
Associated term(s): Multi-factor authentication, Authentication, Authorization
Return to top

• add

Single-Sign-On (SSO)

An authentication process that allows the user to enter a single set of credentials
to access multiple applications.
Return to top

• add

Six Major European Union Institutions, The

The European Parliament, the European Council, the European Commission,

the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the
Court of Auditors.
Return to top

• add

Smart Grid

An energy system that manages electricity consumption through continuous

monitoring, remote computerization and automation. The traditional electric
transmission system required physically sending workers into the field to
periodically read customer meters and find where problems existed in the grid.
Smart grid operators; however, can remotely monitor and control the use of
electricity to each home or business.
Return to top
• add

Social Engineering

A general term for how attackers can try to persuade a user to provide
information or create some other sort of security vulnerability.
Associated term(s): Phishing
Return to top

• add

Software Requirements Specification

A formal documentation of a software system or product to be developed that

includes both functional and nonfunctional requirements. These are used so that
the individual tasked with creating the system or product is aware of the needs of
the individual seeking the creation.
Acronym: SRS
Associated term(s): Functional Requirements, Non-functional
requirements, Plan-driven Development Model, Agile Development Model
Return to top

• add

SPAM

Unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Associated law(s): CASL; CAN-SPAM Act
Return to top

• add

Spear Phishing

Phishing targeted at a particular group of people with a known affiliation to some

organization.
Associated term(s): Phishing, Whaling, Pharming
Return to top

• add

Special Categories of Data

 As defined in Article 9 of the General Data Protection Regulation, personal
information that reveals, for example, racial origin, political opinions or religious
or other beliefs, as well as personal data that concerns health or sexual life or
criminal convictions is considered to be in a special category and cannot be
processed except under specific circumstances.
Associated term(s): Sensitive Personal Data
Return to top

• add

Speech recognition

Voice command technology that allows users to interact with and control
technologies by speaking to them.
Return to top

• add

SQL Injection

Taking advantage of SQL forms by inserting commands in information entry

boxes. SQL is transferred in such a way that commands placed in forms can be
seen as valid commands and affect the system in whatever way that command
operates. Hackers can use SQL Injections to erase data banks, over load servers,
etc. if the SQL isn’t properly set up to avoid such attacks.
Associated term(s): SQL
Return to top

• add

Stakeholders

Individual executives within an organization who lead and “own” the

responsibility of privacy activities.
Return to top

• add

Standard Model Clauses

See "Contractual Clauses."

Associated term(s): European Data Protection Directive
Return to top
• add

Standardized Icons

The General Data Protection Regulation permits "visualisation" to be used to

provide fair processing information to data subjects where appropriate and
makes provision for the use of standardized icons to give an easily visible,
understandable and meaningful overview of the processing.
Return to top

• add

Storage Encryption

The use of encryption to protect stored or backed-up data both in transit and in
the storage medium to provide an additional layer of security.
Return to top

• add

Storage Limitation

The principle that personal data must be kept in a form that permits
identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for
which the personal data is processed. Personal data may be stored for longer
periods if it will be processed solely for archiving purposes in the public interest,
scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes, subject to
implementation of the appropriate technical and organizational measures
required to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the data subject.
Return to top

• add

Stored Communications Act

The Stored Communications Act was enacted as part of Electronic

Communications Privacy Act in 1986 in the United States. It generally prohibits
the unauthorized acquisition, alteration or blocking of electronic communications
while in electronic storage in a facility through which an electronic
communications service is provided.
Link to text of law: Stored Communications Act
Acronym(s): SCA
Associated law(s): The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA)
Return to top
• add

Strategic Management

The first high-level task necessary to implementing proactive privacy

management through three subtasks: Define your organization’s privacy vision
and privacy mission statements; develop privacy strategy; and structure your
privacy team.

Return to top

• add

Structured Query Language

A special-purpose programming language that allows for the creation of

interactive forms which users can insert, alter and delete data they have input,
and the system administrators can easily transfer information into usable data
banks of user information. Originally developed by IBM, SQL has become an
international standard for data collection and use.
Acronym: SQL
Associated term(s): SQL Injection
Return to top

• add

Subjective Harm

Exists without an observable or measurable harm, but where an expectation of

harm exists.
Return to top

• add

Subpoena

A written court order issued in an administrative, civil or criminal action that

requires the person named in the subpoena to appear in court in order to testify
under oath on a particular matter which is the subject of an investigation,
proceeding or lawsuit. A subpoena may also require the production of a paper,
document or other object relevant to an investigation, proceeding or lawsuit that
discloses personal information.
Return to top
• add

Substance Testing

A screening to identify drug use. Substance testing can be used in a variety of

settings such as preemployment, reasonable suspicion, routine testing, post-
accident testing or randomly.
Associated terms(s): Americans with Disabilities Act, Random
Testing, Reasonable Suspicion
Return to top

• add

Substitute Notice

Most legislation recognizes that data breach notifications involving thousands of

impacted data subjectscould place an undue financial burden on the organization
and therefore allow substitute notification methods. In Connecticut, for example,
“Substitute notice shall consist of the following: (A) Electronic mail notice when
the person, business or agency has an electronic mail address for the affected
persons; (B) conspicuous posting of the notice on the website of the person,
business or agency if the person maintains one, and (C) notification to major
state-wide media, including newspapers, radio and television.”
Associated term(s): Data Breach
Return to top

• add

Super Cookie

A tracking mechanism that persists even after all cookies have been deleted,
usually using several varying types of storage to remain within a device.
Associated term(s): Cookie
Return to top

• add

Supervisory Authority

An independent public authority established by an EU member state, responsible

for monitoring the application of the General Data Protection Regulation.
Return to top
• add

Supply Side Platform (SSP)

Analogous to a demand side platform (DSP), an SSP enables publishers to access

demand from a wide variety of networks, exchanges, and platforms via one
interface.
Return to top

• add

Surveillance

The observation and/or capturing of an individual's activities.

Return to top

• add

Surveillance Collection

Collection by way of observing the data stream produced by a given data

subject without interference in the data subject’s activity.
Associated term(s): Active Collection, First-Party Collection, Passive
Collection, Repurposing, Third-party Collection
Return to top

• add

Sustain

The third of four phases of the privacy operational life cycle. It provides privacy
management through the monitoring, auditing, and communication aspects of
the management framework.
Associated term(s): Privacy Operational Life Cycle; Assess; Protect; Respond
Return to top

• add

Symmetric Key Encryption

 Also known as Secret Key Encryption is a form of encryption using a single secret
key to both encrypt and decrypt data.
Associated term(s): Asymmetric Key Encryption, Encryption
Return to top

• add

Syndicated Content

Content that is not actually created by the host site, but is developed, purchased
or licensed from a third party. A concern associated with this content is that it can
contain malicious code that is then unwittingly incorporated into the
organization’s own website source code. For example, cross-site scripting (XSS)
attacks attempt to take advantage of the trust that users have for a given site.
Associated term(s): XSS
Return to top

• add

System of Records Notice

A notice required when a federal agency creates, modifies or destroys a system of

records. When the agency collects and stores Personally Identifiable Information
in records, the agency is required to establish the statutory need for the
collection, disclose the collection, describe its contents and declare the routine
uses for that agency or any other agency that will use the information. This
disclosure must be made to the Office of Management and Budget and Congress
and must be published in the Federal Register in advance of the system becoming
operational.
Acronym(s): SORN
Associated law(s): Privacy Act
Return to top

• add

Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

A conceptual model used to describe the stages in an information system

development project.
Associated term(s): Privacy by Design, Privacy Standard, Privacy Review
Return to top

• add

t-closeness
 Extends l-diversity by reducing the granularity of data in a data set.
Return to top

• add

Technology-Based Model

The technology-based model for data protection utilizes technological security

measures to protect individual’s personal data. While it is commonplace for
companies to utilize technology to protect data, developments in commercially
available hardware and software have enabled consumers to establish privacy
protections for their own online activity.
Associated term(s): Comprehensive Laws, Co-regulatory Model, Sectoral
Laws, Self-Regulation Model
Return to top

• add

Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991

The first enactment of laws limiting unsolicited and automated telemarketing for
both telephone and fax communications. Most notably the act creates a private
right of action for those receiving unsolicited faxes, carrying a $500 fine per
violation and any damages sustained because of the fax. The Telephone
Consumer Protection Act also gives rule-making authority to the Federal
Communications Commission, allowing it to make further regulations in this
area. Among other provisions, the act prevents faxing without consent from the
recipient (this requirement was amended by the Junk Fax Prevention Act of
2005 to not include customers with an existing business relationship) and
requires companies to create and honor internal do-not-call registries (in 2003
the National Registry was created by the Federal Trade Commission).
Link to text of law: Telephone Consumer Protection Act
Acronym: TCPA
Associated term(s): Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005, Federal Communications
Commission, Federal Trade Commission
Return to top

• add

Terms of Service

The set of rules which govern the use of a service and must be agreed to, either
implicitly through the use of that service or explicitly, in order to make use of that
service.
Associated term(s): EULA
 Return to top

• add

Territorial Privacy

One of the four classes of privacy, along with information privacy, bodily
privacy and communications privacy. It is concerned with placing limitations on
the ability of one to intrude into another individual’s environment. Environment
is not limited to the home; it may be defined as the workplace or public space and
environmental considerations can be extended to an international level. Invasion
into an individual’s territorial privacy typically comes in the form of video
surveillance, ID checks and use of similar technology and procedures.
Associated term(s): Home Privacy
Return to top

• add

Territorial Scope

"The jurisdictional reach of a law or regulation. In the case of the General Data
Protection Regulation, it applies to organizations
established in the EU and to their third-party processors of personal data,
wherever they happen to be located, and to those organizations that offer goods
or services to, or monitor, individuals in the EU."
Return to top

• add

The Data Quality Act

In light of the increased use of the Internet by federal agencies as an easy,

inexpensive and expedient way to disseminate information to the public,
Congress passed the Data Quality Act of 2000. This act was designed to ensure
the quality of information released by federal agencies. The DQA’s impact on
individual privacy is limited and indirect, as its principal focus is on the quality,
and not the confidentiality, of information intended for publication. That said,
DQA data quality procedures overlap with the data quality and integrity
requirements of the Privacy Act when an agency collects, generates or uses
individual-level data in an agency system of records to prepare or support
published studies or research covered by the DQA.
Link to text of law: The Data Quality Act
Acronym(s): DQA
Associated term(s): Terms
Associated law(s): Privacy Act
Return to top
• add

Third-Party Collection

Data acquired from a source other than directly from the subject of the data.
Associated term(s): Active Collection, First-party Collection, Passive
Collection, Repurposing, Surveillance Collection
Return to top

• add

Tokenization

A system of de-identifying data which uses random tokens as stand-ins for

meaningful data.
Return to top

• add

Traffic Data

This refers to any data processed for the purpose of the conveyance of a
communication on an Electronic Communications Network or for the billing
thereof. Traffic data includes information about the type, format, time, duration,
origin, destination, routing, protocol used and the originating and terminating
network of a communication. For example, in relation to a telephone call, traffic
data includes, among other information, the phone numbers of the caller and call
recipient; in relation to an e-mail, the e-mail addresses of the sender and
recipient’ and the size of any attachments.
Return to top

• add

Transfer

The movement of personal data from one organization to another.

Return to top

• add

Transient Storage
 Short lifespan data storage such as a session cookie stored on a browser that is
purged from the system when the browser is closed.
Associated term(s): Persistent Storage, Cookies
Return to top

• add

Transit

The automatic forwarding of data packets from one server to another.

Return to top

• add

Transmission Control Protocol

A protocol which enables two devices to establish a connection and exchange

data. A combination of TCP and IP is used to send data over the Internet. Data
are sent in the form of a packet, which is a portion of a message sent over the
TCP/IP network. It contains content and a heading that specifies the destination.
Acronym(s): TCP; TCP/IP
Return to top

• add

Transparency

Taking appropriate measures to provide any information relating to processing to

the data subject in a concise, intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear
and plain language.
Return to top

• add

Transport Layer Security

A protocol that ensures privacy between client-server applications and Internet

users of the applications. When a server and client communicate, TLS secures the
connection to ensure that no third party can eavesdrop on or corrupt the
message. TLS is a successor to SSL.
Acronym(s): TLS
Associated term(s): Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
Return to top
• add

Treaty of Lisbon

Signed in 2007, and effective in 2009, its main aim was to strengthen and
improve the core structures of the European Union to enable it to function more
efficiently. The Lisbon Treaty amends the EU’s two core treaties, the Treaty on
European Union and the Treaty Establishing the European Community. The
treaty ensures that all institutions of the European Union must protect
individuals when processing personal data. It also established a European Data
Protection Supervisor whose role is to regulate compliance with data protection
law within the institutions of the European Union, but its references to
”authorities”’ implies that the national data protection authorities may also have
jurisdiction in such matters.
Link to: Treaty of Lisbon
Link to: Treaty on European Union
Link to: Treaty Establishing the European Community
Associated term(s): Lisbon, EDPS
Return to top

• add

Trojan Horse

A form of malware in which bad software masquerades as beneficial software.

Associated term(s): Malware
Return to top

• add

U.S. Department of Labor

A U.S. federal agency that oversees “the welfare of the job seekers, wage earners
and retirees of the United States by improving their working conditions,
advancing their opportunities for profitable employment, protecting their
retirement and healthcare benefits, helping employers find workers,
strengthening free collective bargaining and tracking changes in employment,
prices and other national economic measurements.” To achieve this mission, the
department administers a variety of federal laws including, but not limited to, the
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Occupational Safety and Health Act
(OSHA) and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
Link to: U.S. Department of Labor
Link to text of act: Fair Labor Standards Act
Link to text of act: Occupational Safety and Health Act
Link to text of act: Employee Retirement Income Security Act
Acronym(s): DOL
 Associated law(s): FLSA; ERISA, OSHA
Return to top

• add

Ubiquitous computing

The processing of information is linked with the activity or object it encounters.

Return to top

• add

Unambiguous Consent

Where actions by a data subject lead to an unmistakable conclusion that consent

has been provided; where consent meets the standard of being a "freely given,
specific and informed" indication of an individual’s wishes. This is the baseline
standard for consent in the General Data Protection Regulation.
Return to top

• add

Unfair Trade Practices

Commercial conduct that intentionally causes substantial injury, without

offsetting benefits, and that consumers cannot reasonably avoid.
Associated term(s): Deceptive Trade Practices
Associated law(s): U.S. Federal Trade Commission Act
Return to top

• add

Unified Modeling Language

A notation language that is used to describe system design elements in software

development.
Acronyms: UML
Associated term(s): Plan-driven Design Model, Agile Design Model
Return to top

• add

Uniform Resource Locator

 The address of content located on a web server. Specifically, it is the letter and
number coordinates that an end user submits to the web browser to instruct it to
connect with the desired website. An example of a URL is “https://iapp.org.”
Acronym(s): URL
Return to top

• add

United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare Fair

Information Practice Principles (1973), The

A code of fair information practices that contains five principles:

1. There must be no personal data record keeping systems whose very

existence is secret.
2. There must be a way for an individual to find out what information about
him (or her) is in a record and how it is used.
3. There must be a way for an individual to prevent information about him (or
her) that was obtained for one purpose from being used or made available
for other purposes without his (or her) consent.
4. There must be a way for an individual to correct or amend a record of
identifiable information about him (or her).
5. Any organization creating, maintaining, using or disseminating records of
identifiable personal data must assure the reliability of the data for their
intended use and must take precautions to prevent misuse of the data.

Link to text of: United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare Fair
Information Practice Principles (1973)
Associated term(s): HEW Principles; HEW Report, The
Return to top

• add

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Also called the Human Rights Declaration, the declaration recognized the
universal values and traditions of inherent dignity, freedom, justice and peace. It
was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December
1948. In December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted
and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration
formally announced that “[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference
with his privacy, family, home or correspondence [.]” The statement was intended
to encompass a wide range of conduct, as evidenced by Article 12 of the
Declaration, which describes both the territorial and the communications notions
of privacy.
Link to text of: Universal Declaration of Human Rights
 Associated term(s): Declaration of Human Rights
Return to top

• add

Urgency Procedure

According to the General Data Protection Regulation, in exceptional cases where

there is an urgent need to protection individuals’ rights and freedoms, a
supervisory authority can bypass the cooperation procedures and consistency
mechanism (see Consistency Mechanism) to adopt provisional measures in its
country, after which it should notify other regulators who have an interest in the
matter, the Commission and the European Data Protection Board. The
supervisory authority can apply to the EDPB for an urgent opinion or decision
where it feels that final measures are needed, and any regulator can apply for an
urgent opinion or decision where it feels that another regulator has failed to take
appropriate action in a case of urgency.
Return to top

• add

US-CERT

A partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the public and
private sectors intended to coordinate the response to security threats from the
Internet. As such, it releases information about current security issues,
vulnerabilities and exploits via the National Cyber Alert System and works with
software vendors to create patches for security vulnerabilities.
Link to: National Cyber Alert System
Link to: U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team
Acronym(s): US-CERT
Return to top

• add

US-CERT IT Security Essential Body of Knowledge

Fourteen generic information security practice competency areas, including:

Digital Security; Digital Forensics; Enterprise Continuity; Incident Management;
IT Security and Training Awareness; IT Systems Operation and Maintenance;
Network and Telecommunications Security; Personnel Security; Physical and
Environmental Security; Procurement; Regulatory and Standards Compliance;
Security Risk Management; Strategic Security Management; and System and
Application Security.
Link to: US-CERT IT Security Essential Body of Knowledge
 Return to top

• add

USA PATRIOT Act

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools

Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001
is a broad-ranging act designed to counter terrorism that expanded U.S. law
enforcement authority to surveillance and capturing communications and
records. Commonly referred to as the Patriot Act.
Link to text of act: USA PATRIOT Act
Return to top

• add

Use Limitation

See "Purpose Limitation."

Link to text of memo: Fair Information Practice Principles
Associated term(s): Fair Information Practices
Return to top

• add

User Stories

Requirements of new software systems or products as they are implemented in

an Agile Development Model. Usually they consist of a few sentences that
describe how a consumer would interact with the system or product and what the
ideal functionality would look like. These are used to inform the developers of
how a system or product should work while they are designing a given portion of
the system.
Associated term(s): Agile Development Model, SRS
Return to top

• add

User-based access controls

Rely on the identity of the user to determine whether to grant or deny access to a
desired resource.
Return to top
• add

Value-Added Services

A telecommunications industry term for non-core services; i.e., services beyond

voice calls and fax transmissions. More broadly, the term is used in the service
sector to refer to services, which are available at little or no cost, and promote
their primary business. For mobile phones, while technologies like SMS, MMS
and GPRS are usually considered value-added services, a distinction may also be
made between standard (peer-to-peer) content and premium-charged content.
These are called mobile value-added services (MVAS), which are often simply
referred to as VAS. Value-added services are supplied either in-house by the
mobile network operator themselves or by a third-party value-added service
provider (VASP), also known as a content provider (CP) such as Headline News
or Reuters. VASPs typically connect to the operator using protocols like short
message peer-to-peer protocol (SMPP), connecting either directly to the short
message service centre (SMSC) or, increasingly, to a messaging gateway that gives
the operator better control of the content.
Associated term(s): MVAS, VASP
Return to top

• add

Value-Sensitive Design

A design approach that accounts for moral and ethical values. Values
include privacy, trust, fairness, informed consent, courtesy or freedom from bias.
Assess the values in relation to specific technologies and stakeholders.
Return to top

• add

Vendor Management

Assessment of a third-party vendor for the vendor’s privacy and information

security policies, access controls, where the personal information will be held and
who has access to it. Privacy/security questionnaires, privacy impact assessments
and other checklists can be used to assess this risk.
Return to top

• add

Verification
 Refer to definition for Authorization.
Return to top

• add

Video Surveillance

Recordings that do not have sound.

Associated term(s): Video Surveillance Guidelines
Associated law(s): FISA
Return to top

• add

Video Surveillance Guidelines

Guidelines discouraging video as an initial security option with the following

constraints: (1) Video should be taken only in the absence of less intrusive
alternatives; (2) the use should be disclosed to the public; (3) individuals should
have access to their personal information; (4) video surveillance should be subject
to independent audit, and (5) fair information practices should be respected.
Return to top

• add

Virtual Private Network

A network that uses primarily public telecommunication infrastructure, such as

the Internet, to provide remote offices or traveling users an access to a central
organizational network. VPNs typically require remote users of the network to
be authenticated and often secure data with encryption technologies to prevent
disclosure of private information to unauthorized parties.
Acronym(s): VPN
Associated term(s): Remote Access Connectivity
Return to top

• add

Vital Interests

Protecting "vital interests" refers to circumstances of life or death — in other

words, where the processing of personal data contemplated is vital to an
individual’s survival. For example, under the European General Data Protection
 Regulation, processing of personal data that necessary in order to protect the vital
interests of the data subject or of another natural person is one of the six legal
bases for processing personal data. This criterion will be relevant only in rare
emergency situations such as health care settings, humanitarian response, and
law enforcement.
Return to top

• add

Voice Over Internet Protocol

A technology that allows telephone calls to be made over a LAN or the Internet
itself. Skype is a well-known example. VoIP poses the same risk as network-
connected PBX systems but also poses the additional risk of data interception
when such data travel over an unsecured connection. VoIP functionality should
be encrypted where possible and equipment monitored with intrusion-detection
systems.
Acronym(s): VoIP
Return to top

• add

Vulnerability management

Assessing and developing plans for the capability and probability that a threat
actor's acts will succeed.
Return to top

• add

Web Beacon

Also known as a web bug, pixel tag or clear GIF, a web beacon is a clear graphic
image (typically one pixel in size) that is delivered through a web browser
or HTML e-mail. The web beacon operates as a tag that records an end user’s visit
to a particular web page or viewing of a particular e-mail. It is also often used in
conjunction with a web cookie and provided as part of a third-party tracking
service. Web beacons provide an ability to produce specific profiles of user
behavior in combination with web server logs. Common usage scenarios for web
beacons include online ad impression counting, file download monitoring, and ad
campaign performance management. Web beacons also can report to the sender
about which e-mails are read by recipients. Privacy considerations for web
beacons are similar to those for cookies. Some sort of notice is important because
the clear pixel of a web beacon is quite literally invisible to the end user.
Associated term(s): Web Bug, Pixel Tag, Tracking Bug, Clear GIF
Return to top
• add

WebTrust

Created by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and

the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA). It is a self-regulating
seal program which licenses qualifying certified public accountants.
Associated term(s): Seal Programs
Return to top

• add

Whaling

Phishing targeted at a specific individual or individuals known to be wealthy.

Associated term(s): Spear Phishing, Phishing, Pharming
Return to top

• add

Whistleblowing

If illegal or improper activity is taking place within an organization, employees

may first observe it and report it to individuals with more authority or an agency
outside of the organization. In setting up procedures to make it possible for an
employee to report such activity, per laws in a variety of jurisdictions that protect
the rights of these so-called whistleblowers, an organization will want to be sure
that appropriate privacy safeguards are put in place.
Associated term(s): Whistleblower
Associated law(s): Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Return to top

• add

Wide Area Network

A non-localized telecommunications network that can be used to transmit data

across large regions.
Acronym(s): WAN
Associated term(s): LAN; Local Area Network
Return to top

• add
 Work Product Information

A Canadian term referring to information about an individual that is related to

that individual’s position, functions and/or performance of his or her job. A term
that is undefined by PIPEDA, the privacy commissioner has decided that work
product may at times fall under the definition of personal information. Access to
such information by the commissioner is addressed on a case-by-case basis. Not
to be confused with the American legal term "work product," which refers to legal
materials prepared in anticipation of litigation.
Associated term(s): Employee Information
Associated law(s): PIPEDA
Return to top

• add

Works Councils

Works councils, primarily in the European Union, are bodies that represent
employees and have certain rights under local law that affect the use of employee
data by employers. Works councils can have a role in deciding whether
employees’ personal data can be processed because they typically have an
obligation to safeguard employee rights, which include data protection and
privacy rights. They are most likely to be encountered in a data protection setting
in Germany.
Associated term(s): Labor Unions; Unions; Labour Unions
Return to top

• add

Worm

A computer program or algorithm that replicates itself over a computer network,

usually performing malicious actions.
Associated term(s): Flash Worm
For the acronym WORM, see Write Once Read Many.
Return to top

• add

Write Once Read Many

A data storage device in which information, once written, cannot be modified.

This protection offers assurance that the data originally written to the device has
not been tampered with. The only way to remove data written to a WORM device
 is to physically destroy the device.

Acronym(s): WORM
Return to top