What Is A Data Passport: Building Trust, Data Privacy And Security In The Cloud

Data privacy is one of the most critical elements of business today — and also one of the most challenging. Sixty percent of businesses reported they suffered a data breach caused by a vendor or third party in 2018, and according to Gemalto, more than 6 million records are lost or stolen every day.

That represents a huge problem for businesses, especially in highly regulated and sensitive industries like banking. Governments around the world are starting to take notice, and new policies in Europe and elsewhere are beginning to take effect that require businesses to be more accountable for data breaches and more proactive about privacy and security.

That’s why several companies have introduced data passports as a way to protect data in the cloud and in transit. 

Data passport technology is based on classic mainframe technology, which today, can include full encryption of your data, to ensure that every piece of data is encrypted. When each piece of data is encrypted, even if it is stolen, it can’t be used. 

Data passports allow you to extend the encryption technology that used to be only available on a physical mainframe to cloud computing. Each piece of data in the cloud has a passport assigned to it, and with the passport, you can verify if the data is misused, if the passport is still valid, etc. 

These data passports also give companies the ability to protect data and revoke access to it at any time, across a multi-cloud environment. Because the data carries its passport — and its encryption — with it, it will help enterprises secure their data wherever it travels.

And that’s the most significant development that makes data passports so unique and important: the protection and enforcement of data privacy and security are available on and off any given platform as it travels with the data.

Why does data need a passport?

One of the biggest problems with data security is that so much of our computing these days takes place not in a physical mainframe, but in the cloud.  

It used to be that data thieves might have to break into a physical space to steal hard drives or mainframes in order to steal data. Not any more. 

With more and more computing of all kind taking place in the cloud, that data can become extremely vulnerable.