Sun's 'Network Of You'
The initiative, inspired by Time magazine's latest person of the year, recognizes the importance of keeping people safe and secure in this tech-fueled age, she said: "It's really an interesting way of looking at the value of human data -- what does the future look like and how does privacy and personal data control factor in?"
Consider this: IDC estimates that by 2010, about 70 percent of the world's digital data will be created by individuals. Meanwhile, 161 billion gigabytes of digital stuff was created globally last year alone. That's like 12 stacks of books that each reach from the Earth to the sun (the fireball in the sky, that is -- not the tech firm's Santa Clara, Calif. headquarters).
"Securing all this information along its lifecycle so it can lead to good business decisions is critical," Dennedy said. Key questions include how the information is stored and how long is it stored. The journey is leading policymakers away from "soil-based decisions," and requires attention from the international community -- not just Capitol Hill, she said.
The issue of managing stored information has been a "sleeping giant" for years and "so much information has just been accumulating and accumulating," Dennedy warned. "As [companies] go through mergers and acquisitions, the question of who 'owns' data arises."
On an international front, "it's the Wild West," she says. "Germany wants you to keep things for 10 minutes, in France, it's 30 years." Dennedy was in Washington last month chatting with government officials about that very problem and offering best practices on how to cope.
Federal privacy legislation is coming, she added: "It will be useful if it is written well and it will knock us back if it is not written well. If it is written with an eye toward isolationism, we'll be in desperate trouble."
For more, surf on over to Dennedy's blog to keep up with her latest musings on data integrity and privacy.
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