Across the world companies and other organizations face a wave of new and proposed privacy laws and data protection regulation. Once limited to European residents, these requirements now span the globe from Asia to South and North America and even Africa. Additional privacy rules are also emerging within countries at the provincial and state level. Even more new laws are on the way as countries have either proposed or are about to implement their own rules. Soon nearly every country and provinces and states within those countries could have their own privacy rules. Traditional archiving approaches fall short of meeting these new requirements, and this is driving many companies to re-examine how they manage information.
Data protection is about securing data from unauthorized access. Privacy is about who has authorized access and how long it can be retained. Many of the new and emerging regulations address a combination of data protection and privacy requirements, so often these terms are used interchangeably.
Data privacy and protection regulations vary around the globe.