The easiest thing to do in scoping out the electronic privacy landscape for 2010 would be to decry the incredible alignment of factors guaranteeing that next year has little hope of serving some sort of turning point compared to what we’ve seen of late.

But rather than merely highlighting the fact that according to PrivacyRightsClearinghouse’s experts more electronic records were exposed during 2009 than any year ever before, it’s worth attempting to find positive signs in terms of attempts to improve personal privacy in the upcoming year.

Legislation and Regulation

It’s debatable what affect mandates passed down by the government and various industry bodies have had in improving electronic privacy issues, but as flawed as the entire notion of improving security via regulation may be viewed by some experts, we will see more laws go into effect in 2010 aimed at spurring companies to do more.

On the statewide front, many legislatures continue to make their data protection requirements more stringent. For instance in my home state of Massachusetts we’ll have our new 201 CMR 17 law which enacts new Standards for the Protection of Personal Information go into effect. Along with laying out stricter requirements for local businesses regarding their the use of data encryption and other security measures, such laws are also aimed at having a nationwide impact as any company doing business with a resident of the state is also required to comply with the mandate.

In Congress we’ll see if the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2009 — which requires entities keeping personal data to establish “effective programs” for ensuring that sensetive data is kept confidential — will pass muster. The FTC is also deep into a set of debates over issues of online privacy protection, specifically looking into user tracking and advertising practices.

Technology

In terms of technological improvements, new products and services will launch in 2010 with the specific goal of helping people better protect their identities. In addition to technologies that aim to help banks, vendors and other companies connect more safely with legitimate customers, owners of popular social networking sites, including Facebook, have begun to introduce new privacy features after having become targets of both attackers and pundits for their previous lack of controls.

In a nod to the aforementioned interests of the FTC, major search engine providers including Yahoo are promising to lend greater transparency to their user tracking policies, specifically around the use of targeted advertising. Yahoo recently launched an advertising privacy tool intended to provide people with more information about the types of data being collected about their usage patterns and how their related user profiles are handled. Microsoft’s newer Bing search engine has also been tweaked to offer users greater insight into and control over their saved usage data.

Awareness

One could argue that like legislation, it’s hard to say that increased awareness of the electronic privacy epidemic has markedly improved the overall situation, but if knowledge is power it does seem that there will be continued focus placed by many in the private and public sectors on reinforcing to people how mindful of their privacy matters they need to be.

A number of organizations including the National Association of Attorneys General and vendors including Intel, Google and Microsoft recently announced the establishment of “Data Privacy Day” which will be observed on January 28, 2010, and involve a number of promotional events meant to raise consumer privacy awareness.

In more targeted efforts, a group of leading Internet publishers and digital marketing services recently launched an online campaign to educate consumers about how they are tracked and targeted by marketers over the Web. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) unveiled a related “Privacy Matters” Web site and a number of IAB members including Yahoo, Google, Walt Disney Co. and The New York Times Co. have volunteered to support the effort via links featured prominently on their own pages.

So while the doubters and naysayers among us will still have plenty to fret over in 2010, the push to help us all better navigate the privacy quagmire will at the same time be carried on.

Because in terms of improving the current state of play, things can’t get much worse. Right?

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3. Social Networks Increase Risks to Online Privacy
4. Mobile Web Driving New Privacy Issues
5. Be Prepared to Establish Your ID When Red Flag Rules Go into Effect