22.2. What Is Privacy?

First, let's try to demystify the whole topic. Privacy is about an individual's right to have his/her personally identifiable data protected, at home and at work. Personally identifiable information includes all the data that helps us to identify or contact an individual, plus all of the additional facts that we store about these individuals. It does not cover anonymous behavior that is not linked to an identified individual or trend data that is just a summary of what lots of individuals have done. Privacy applies to all the data you collect (or have collected) about your customers, whether online or off. But in spite of all the legal and political rhetoric, creating an effective privacy policy and protecting your customers' data is really not rocket science.