POLYAS Election Glossary

We provide explanations and background information on elections, voting rights and digital democracy

Data Protection

The term data protection generally refers to protecting data against loss or damage. It can also be used in the context of securing personal data against misuse by unauthorized third party access.

Securing data against loss or damage

Data protection against loss or damage involves making regular backups. Ideally, backups should occurr automatically on separate servers so that data can always be retrieved in its most up-to-date form.

Securing against unauthorized misuse of personal data

Data protection may also refer to securing data against unauthorized use by third parties. In order to protect personal data from misuse, techniques such as block checksums, disk encryption, access control lists, digital signatures and firewalls can be implemented. Using these techniques will go a long way to ensuring that private individuals maintain the right to choose when and to whom they share their personal data.

See also: Data Security, Backups, Safe Harbour


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