Database Security and Privacy Principles - Essay Example

Personal information (PI) could be gathered, held, and used for many different purposes and through different methods. Once the information has been collected, various legal and ethical issues govern the right access to such information. Some information is deemed to be confidential and this means that third parties may not acquire it legally (Doyle & Bagaric, 2005). Several laws relating to database security and privacy have been promulgated in different countries across the world. Database security entails the protection of collected information. If this is not done, then databases are subjected to several threats that could lead to loss of integrity, loss of availability, and loss of confidentiality (IFIP, 2013).

Privacy protection is both a personal and fundamental right for any individual. It is the right of every individual to hold the expectation that organizations that collect information will ensure the confidentiality of personal information. One way in which this can be achieved is by ensuring that organizations will collect, maintain, utilize, and disseminate personal information and data only to the extent that is necessary to enable them to perform their functions (Doyle & Bagaric, 2005).

Privacy laws regulate how entities handle personal information. They also include obligations that govern the collection, use, disclosure, and access to personal information, requiring entities to observe reasonable measures for the protection of personal information in their possession from misuse, loss, and from unauthorized access, use, modification, or disclosure.

The NIST triad for privacy is set under the above set of requirements for privacy. It is a model for information security that incorporates three main components namely confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Each of these components in the triad stresses a key objective for information security. Confidentiality requires that data is only availed to appropriate parties, integrity means the certainty that there is no tampering with the data prior to and after collection, and availability means that the data will be made available as and when needed (Nemati, 2008).