Month: December 2015

Yet another ‘breakfast seminar’, subject the upcoming Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You turn up between 8 and 8.30 for a sandwich and coffee, and the following hour is spent listening to experts speaking on a subject that is burning in the back of the heads of every CEO, CTO, CSO and CISO in EU member states.

Déjà vu – the message is the same again, received loud and clear: the Regulation is not complete, and in fact 30% is incomplete! Panic ensues as the CxOs absorb and comprehend. The news is not new, but it’s just that as each month encroaches, eating into the end of 2015, the CxOs are expecting something new!

Focus on what we know, there is so much to do without losing sleep over the unknowns!

I am disappointed again, and have to stop myself jumping up and stealing the stage. What I am missing is the message stating what is actually in place, what we know. The message the 30% is incomplete is not contextually correct. Sure member states cannot agree on specifics, e.g. should it be 2% or 5% imposed as fines on offenders not following the rules, how long should breach notification be from 24 to 72 hours? However what is decided on is the basic underlying principles that were defined in the EU Data Protection Directive of 1995. The Directive has 2 fundamental goals:

1. To facilitate the flow of personal data across national boarders within the EU, and
2. Protect the rights of EU data subjects.

All the legal text written within the Directive, and the upcoming Regulation is founded on these goals. The EU Data Protection (as is all privacy legislation worldwide) is based on 8 privacy principles (OECD Guidelines): Collection Limitation, Data Quality, Purpose Specification, Use Limitation, Security Safeguards, Openness, Individual Participation and Accountability (embedded podcast gives an intense view of these). These principles have been further classified into 11 in an the ISO 29100 Privacy Framework standard, whereby Consent and Data Minimisation have be broken out and described further.

There is so much CxOs can do before the Regulation is finalized and implemented. Principally, one can establish the GAP between the local Data Protection Legislation and the Directive (1995). For example in Sweden this is significant. Personal data is public information due to a clash with Freedom of Press Act which makes the Swedish Data Protection Act somewhat impotent. Today 996 Swedish companies have something called an ‘utgivningsbevis’ which permits them to publish and make money from the personal data of Swedish citizens and residents. The data-subject in Sweden has no rights to have this data removed… believe me I’ve tried! This is incompatible with the Directive, and the upcoming Regulation. There is also some interesting deviations on how structured and unstructured personal data is treated, basically how the existing laws deals with unstructured personal data will not be compatible with the Regulation, just as it is incompatible with the Directive today. Both of these examples are in contradiction of some/all of the 8 privacy principles that the Directive, and the Regulation are grounded upon. There is so much work to do now……

So I’m going to help you to help yourself! You can get an intense exposure to the 8 privacy principles in the embedded podcast below, but it is pretty intense, and you need to stay focused for 12 minutes of listening to my voice… maybe not easy 😉

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/227889958?secret_token=s-od5I2″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

Alternatively if you want to fast-track yourself or some keen privacy enthusiasts in your company to be ready to run in 2016, I have just launched a 10-hour online course (Privacy & Data Protection – Introduction) that is kind on time and budget (€225). The Learner will earn a Privacy EAGLE badge that is compatible with Mozilla’s OpenBadge standard. Sitting behind the learning platform in addition to myself will be a young lady legal geek qualified in both English and Swedish IT and Data Protection Laws.

I am frustrated by the number of companies that say they do privacy, when they don’t know what ‘privacy’ is! Just because an consulting company states they have consultants on privacy projects, does not mean they are privacy experts. They are not lying, it’s just they don’t know themselves. Having said this, I ‘take my hat off’ to a couple of security consulting companies that are taking steps to proactively extend the skill-set of their consultants into privacy. But what does this mean?

Privacy, i.e. data protection, kept short and simple is what we all want…

Clearly the Regulation is not short and it is not simple. To try and implement a privacy program across your organization fueled by the stringent requirements of the Regulation is enough to keep any CxO awake at night. The punishment fine of 4% of global turnover is not being taken lightly by any of those I talk with. There is more confusion pertaining to, ‘well what does it mean’?

I’ve have touched on briefly in another post the fundamental building blocks of privacy, and the legal text is based upon these fundamental goals and principles. Hence despite the legal complexity of the GDPR it does offer hope for us normal guys and girls that don’t eat legal jargon for breakfast!

Just to recap, the Regulation is at its most basic level has 2 fundamental goals: 1) to facilitate the flow of personal data across national boarders within the EU, and 2) protect the rights of EU data subjects. Moreover it is founded on 8 -easy to understand- privacy principles that have been around since 1980 in the OECD Guidelines, and in fact these were originally adapted from US FIPPs (Fair Information Privacy Principles) defined in 1973.

These 8 principles are:

• Collection Limitation – 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;
• Data Quality – 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;
• Purpose Specification – 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 not incompatible with those purposes, and as are specified on each occasion of change of purpose;
• Use Limitation – Personal data should not be disclosed, made available or otherwise used for purposes other than those specified in accordance with the Purpose Specification Principle except (a) with the consent of the data subject; or (b) by the authority of law:
• Security Safeguards – Personal data should be protected by reasonable security safeguards against such risks as loss or unauthorised access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure;
• Openness – 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;
• Individual Participation – 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 communicated to him, data relating 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;
• Accountability – A data controller should be accountable for complying with measures which give effect to the principles stated above.

Below is an embedded podcast which provides an intense view of the principles, along with some contextual help.

Podcast

They almost achieved a brain melt-down at the Nordic IT Security Forum this year. The atmosphere was on a parallel with InfoSec Europe, but better. Better because this is the Nordics, we are only 9 million in Sweden alone, I need to count Finland, Norway and Denmark, but even together we are nowhere near the density of mass of InfoSec enthusiasts, experts and products as found in the UK.  UK boasts a population over 64 million. Clearly we can’t compete in the Nordics, but we don’t want to!

It was great to find lots of really cool guys from Finland, Norway and Denmark with us. We were graced with the presence of Mikko Hypponen who delivered a great keynote, and David Lacey from UK, the brains behind the ISO27000 standard and the Jericho forum was among our ranks, not forgetting the towering presence of Mika Kataikko! I was moderating among the esteemed female security ranks of  Ann-Marie Eklund Löwinder and some other guys too, that were great, but Ann-Marie outshines them all 🙂

I was delighted to find even more Brits over in Stockholm, Jason Hart was great! A former ethical hacker, left me with a very simple message “you will be hacked, accept and prepare”. His argument was that we waste so much time and energy trying to block the inevitable, it just makes more sense to transfer those energies. It reminds me of quantum physics funnily enough. Basically they were scratching their heads for many years trying to place quantum as a part of existing laws of physics and got nowhere. Progress was only made when it was accepted that quantum cannot be understood. Acceptance opens a new world, and a blank sheet to start working on that presents a new breed of questions.

So did I make new contacts? The problem was that I was so busy moderating or speaking that missed out on a whole load of networking. However I saw everyone else was busy, so I’ll try to do better next year!

Well now you’ve read all my ramblings I’d better finally get to the point, articles written by 5 of the top-ranked speakers at #nordicitsec can be found here, of which I am privileged to be one.