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The U.S. Congress is once again focused on data privacy. This time, however, there may be sufficient bipartisan support to move things forward toward protecting American consumers and businesses. A new federal law, which is currently in draft, is the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA). If it passes, this new bill would regulate how organizations collect, store, and use personal information (aka “covered data”), and it would take precedence over, and preempt a patchwork of data privacy regulation at the state and sector levels.

Today, Very Good Security (VGS) reinforces an even greater commitment to protecting the world’s sensitive data by announcing support of the new Open Finance Data Security Standard (OFDSS). Since 2015, VGS has been committed to helping companies secure their most sensitive data and has always stood firm that the protection of consumer information is the preeminent security priority to any company operating in financial services.

Information is life. Therefore, when nations go to war, information operations – including data theft, denial, and manipulation – are one of the keys to victory. Even in peacetime, governments run thousands of computer network operations (CNO) every day. Some are designed to support democracy and human rights, while others surveil, target, and terrify innocent civilians.

VGS is on a mission to protect the world’s sensitive data and at the same time transform data security and compliance from a business obstacle into an opportunity.

Securing sensitive data is the cornerstone on which VGS was built, and as such, we firmly believe in the democratization of tools to help businesses large and small protect their most valuable asset — their data. That’s why we’re excited to share that we have removed all barriers for anyone who would like to use our new and improved cloud Tokenization API, including our dedicated and redesigned application.

Back it Up, Baby

We have all been there. In college, we lost the killer ending of our thesis. At work, we could not find our quarterly results. And right now, we are sure that we went on vacation in 2016, but we cannot remember where – because that was several phones ago. Fortunately, due to the miracle of autosaves, cloud storage, and more, such data loss happens less often than it used to.

It can be tough for the most progressive organizations to keep up with technology these days. The challenge is even harder for governments where politics, deliberation, and bureaucracy rule the day. Standards, norms, and regulation always lag behind the market curve, especially in IT. In the US, for example, there are no comprehensive, consent-based data privacy laws on the national level. Until that changes in the coming years businesses will continue to struggle with uncertainty and technological missteps

For years now, tokenization has been the hot topic in the payments industry. Around the world, millions of businesses are now using tokenization to help secure payment data, sensitive transactions, and information such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and personally identifiable information (PII).

Today is Data Privacy Day, a global event recognized in over 50 countries to promote data privacy and protection best practices.

As society continues to ‘go digital,’ personal data is a goldmine for businesses. This doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing necessarily. It helps make the consumer experience better, and in some contexts like medical, can even save lives.

Time for an old joke: during the war, an Italian spy was captured, tied to a chair, and interrogated -- unsuccessfully -- for hours. The spy’s captors finally gave up and threw the spy into a jail cell. Fellow prisoners were impressed and asked how the spy could withstand interrogation. The Italian replied, “Well, I wanted to tell them everything ... but I couldn’t move my hands!”

In the world of data security, keeping secrets is no joke. In espionage, your agent might be captured. In business, your data might be captured. Both are bad, whether you’re in Italy or anywhere else.

VGS is proud to announce the new VGS Trust Center. Built-in collaboration with SafeBase.io, the Trust Center gives customers and partners a place to instantly search the entire VGS security program database, from network diagrams to access control, cyber insurance, penetration testing, and much more. It’s an all-in-one resource to answer almost any question about how VGS secures our environment to keep your data secure.