Privacy is protection from unwanted interference or intrusion, including boundaries against unwanted access to our bodies and possessions as well as against surveillance of our communications and information. It is recognized as an important, fundamental right in many countries, enshrined in the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as well as in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Information privacy issues have become especially prominent in recent decades, as the internet has made it possible - and, in many cases, very profitable - for businesses, governments, and other actors to harness the enormous amounts of personal data we generate every day through our activities online and on our smartphones. While the algorithms and data science of the big data era have produced incredibly valuable applications that enrich our lives in many ways, there are also growing concerns surrounding the challenges of preventing our data from being used by companies in unauthorized or unethical ways.

For tech companies, privacy and information ethics isn’t just an abstract discussion. As privacy law has caught up with the digital age, companies now face serious regulatory compliance requirements in this area, as well as potential civil and even criminal liabilities from the misuse of personal data. As importantly, breaches of privacy and the trust of your users can turn a data management failure into a brand management catastrophe, as companies perceived to have untrustworthy privacy practices can suffer enormous damage to their public reputation.

An understanding of the issues surrounding information and data privacy is essential to many types of careers in the tech industry. Data engineers, data scientists, and software developers must be careful about how they utilize user data when building applications; cybersecurity experts are responsible for ensuring that personal information is protected from hackers and other malicious actors; and tech CEOs must guide their companies to adopt the right information ethics practices or else face major reputational risks.

Lawyers working in the tech industry must have a particularly sharp background in privacy law, and a growing number of lawyers are specializing in privacy issues given rising demand in tech and other sectors for expertise in this area. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, lawyers earned a median annual salary of $122,960 in 2019.

Certainly. As the world’s leading online learning platform, Coursera has a wide variety of popular courses on computer science as well as the law, as well as courses on privacy that sit at the intersection of both. You can learn about privacy from top-ranked universities like University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University, or from institutions like EIT Digital, a leading European digital innovation and education organization. And, since you can view course materials and complete assignments on a flexible schedule, you can learn about privacy issues alongside your current studies or career.