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Celebrate Data Privacy Day on January 28

Celebrate Data Privacy Day on January 28

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On January 28, the US, Canada, and much of Europe will celebrate Data Privacy Day, which was started in 2007 to promote awareness of protecting personal information.

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This Saturday, people in the US, Canada, and much of Europe will be celebrating a relatively new and little-known holiday: Data Privacy Day. Started as Data Protection Day in 2007 by the Council of Europe, the day is meant to call attention to the importance of protecting personal information. It also commemorates the 1981 signing of the Council of Europe's Convention 108, the first international treaty to recognize data privacy as a fundamental right.

As happens every year, events will be hosted in the weeks around Data Privacy Day by legal experts, non-profit groups, and businesses that want to raise awareness of important issues related to personal data. The US Census Bureau has also posted in honor of the holiday, describing how it collects and uses census data without revealing identifying information. With Google's new privacy policy raising questions about its use of data and the EU proposing new privacy guidelines, it's a holiday for something nobody is likely to forget about soon.