Security is not Privacy

I read this blog last week titled “Privacy is not Security” and it got me thinking about the relationship between the two fields.  As the author states “Privacy is a whole lot more than security.”  I would like to clarify that statement by saying that security is a necessary but not sufficient component of privacy.  Again, security is required if you are to have privacy but really it’s insufficient to guarantee privacy.  Really, what’s required is a different mindset.

Toll roads have recently come up twice in my reading: first in researching Privacy by Design I came across a description of how to travel anonymously on Canada’s 407 and secondly in a recent article about a lawsuit commenced when the the local toll roads in Florida started asking for all this invasive information to combat counterfeiting of cash in addition to the existing privacy invasive electronic toll system.

The Florida toll system may (and I stress may) have all manner of security precautions on who has access to the data, how it’s stored, when to destroy it, etc. but the fact remains they have a culure that is inherently privacy invasive.  They haven’t even considered how to design their system in a way that is innately protective of privacy.