Privacy and Cybersecurity Are Converging. Here’s Why That Matters for People and for Companies.

2018 has been the year of privacy.  News of Facebook’s exposure of tens of millions of user accounts to data firm Cambridge Analytica broke in March — a scandal that was only compounded by recent news that the tech giant shared even more private data through hidden agreements with other companies. Then in May, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, the world’s most stringent privacy law, came into effect. By the end of the year, even Apple’s and Microsoft’s CEOs were calling for new national privacy standards in the United States. It’s not just a coincidence that privacy issues dominated 2018. These events are symptoms of larger, profound shifts in the world of data privacy and security that have major implications for how organizations think about and manage both. So what, exactly, is changing? Put simply, privacy and security are converging, thanks to the rise of big data and machine learning.