Big data and big breaches. These continue to be major topics in privacy both in Asia Pacific and around the world. You know its BIG when the U.S. president is making pacts with fellow heads of state such as India on cybersecurity.

The flip side of this is de-identification and security. In a drive to make us and where we live smarter, the goal is to also be smart about how we implement privacy in the design and ethics of our big data projects, and develop tools to support privacy. If the value of our personal data to organisations is increasing, then that should be reflected in the planning, research and measures that are put in place to protect it when its exploited. When professor Joseph Cannataci, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy, recently spoke during Privacy Awareness Weeks as the guest of the privacy commissioners in New Zealand and Australia, while in New Zealand he asked us to consider in whose interests did the 'new oil' of big data serve — who benefited from the view that it was key to our future, and what the potential privacy cost was? 

Meanwhile, when visiting Australia, Cannataci said that while Australia was good at privacy it could be better. In the ongoing U.S. vs. EU privacy debate, the U.S. has come in for some serious criticism about its privacy laws: Now we have the answer to the question we have all been asking, is your data really safer in Europe? If not there, then where should we be sending it? Answers on a postcard. Otherwise just please enjoy the Digest.