Thursday, July 31, 2008

DV>DR = Success

DV>DR= Success. Where D=Data, V= value, and R=risk. An interesting formula. One of the nations' most respected privacy professionals and fortunately for me a friend is now using this as a part of her blog signature. It's a great way to remind us all that it is our job as privacy professionals to strive to lower the risk of data misuse while at the same time using technological channels for their intended purpose, communication.

I have added another factor to the formula called the mitigating Factor (mF) and reworked the formula as below;
mF/DR < DV = success
Where we never want to actually devalue the data I think it is imperative to lower the resale value in order to reduce the risk. The mitigating factor is the N value or unknown. I'm working on that one.

In my opinion it has been demonstrated time and again that we cannot prevent data theft as long as there is a resale value. No amount of technological roadblocks in the form of red flag (mismatch) protocols, encryption algorithms, or any other plug-in solution can prevent the clever thief from accessing data if the value is high enough. So we need to think in terms of removing the financial motive from thieves.

John
mF/DR< DV= success