Introduction
With the development of the Internet and the digitalization of the economy, personal data is becoming an increasingly valuable resource. Moreover, consumers have specific benefits from the increasing amount of information collected about them since they receive personalized, innovative advertising offers. However, users have almost no control over how personal data will be used later. Users are increasingly exposed to the risks of becoming victims of fraud, theft, and other illegal acts related to the leakage of personal data. In addition, the risk of identifying a criminal in such cases is minimal since local law enforcement agencies often do not have sufficient technical means to determine the identity of the subject of the offense. Similar ethical problems arise in Kuwait, where it is necessary to develop an infrastructure to secure digital data.
The Case
Such incidents are not limited to specific industries: they occur in the banking sector, retail and entertainment services, the field of medicine, and even in government institutions. Data leaks can have various causes and be allowed both with intent and without it. In a severe data incident related to The Dark Web, 887 Kuwaiti websites were compromised, resulting in the loss of more than 4,360 data files (Security Middle East, 2022).
The compromised websites come from public and commercial organizations and span a range of sectors like e-commerce, communications, and education (Security Middle East, 2022). Thus, in the case of data leakage, the application of state sanctions is practically impracticable since, in civil law disputes, as a rule, there is a problem of proof (Chen, 2021). In addition, in the case of criminal prosecution, most of the subjects of theft or fraud are foreign citizens, resulting in many issues arising related to the jurisdiction of States.
Due to the absence of a significant risk of criminal prosecution, the prevalence of crimes related to identity theft continues to grow yearly. Companies with whom users have entrusted their data should make the maximum possible efforts to combat such crimes and to prevent their commission (DataGuidance, 2021). Setting a high level of data security with the help of federal legislation providing a single standard would be highly effective (Skendžić, Kovačić and Tijan, 2018).
The information provided from this reference is related to the issue in that they provide an expert view on possible ways to improve the personal data security system. From a technical point of view, the law should create minimum cybersecurity standards for data storage, establish encryption requirements for all forms of personally identifying information, and prescribe appropriate security training for all companies processing personal data.
Conclusion
Digital technologies, with all their enormous advantages, can increase the risks of unethical use of personal data and privacy violations. Data leaks, excessive data collection for profit, formal compliance with legislation, and inadequate data protection make people more vulnerable in the digital age. In most cases, companies’ privacy policies are written in a hard-to-understand language, with vague formulations, and, in addition, require users to give prior consent to changes in the future.
All this subsequently affects the security of users and government agencies under attack by hackers. The demonstrated case makes it clear that the current security system of state institutions in Kuwait is insufficiently developed. Efforts should be directed to the implementation of additional IT legislation that would reform the system of data confidentiality. Such solutions should protect both the private and public sectors.
Reference List
Chen, X. (2021). A Study on personal information protection mechanism of web platform in big data age. 2021 5th Annual International Conference on Data Science and Business Analytics (ICDSBA), 5, pp.120–124. Web.
DataGuidance. (2021). Kuwait: Navigating Kuwait’s latest sectoral data protection legislation. Web.
Security Middle East. (2022). Over 800 Kuwaiti websites hacked in ‘a serious data incident’. Web.
Skendžić, A., Kovačić, B. and Tijan, E. (2018). General data protection regulation — Protection of personal data in an organisation. IEEE Xplore, 1, pp.1370–1375. Web.