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• How to keep personally identifiable information safe

  23 janvier 2020, par Joselyn Khor
  The protection of personally identifiable information (PII) is important both for individuals, whose privacy may be compromised, and for businesses that may have their reputation ruined or be liable if PII is wrongly accessed, used, or shared.

  Curious about what PII is ? Here’s your introduction to personally identifiable information.

  Due to hacking, data leaks or data thievery, PII acquired can be combined with other pieces of information to form a more complete picture of you. On an individual level, this puts you at risk of identity theft, credit card theft or other harm caused by the fraudulent use of your personal information.

  On a business level, for companies who breach data privacy laws – like Cambridge Analytica’s harvesting of millions of FB profiles – the action leads to an erosion of trust. It can also impact your financial position as heavy fines can be imposed for the illegal use and processing of personally identifiable information.

  So what can you do to ensure PII compliance ?

  On an individual level :

  1. Don’t give your data away so easily. Although long, it’s worthwhile to read through privacy policies to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.
  2. Don’t just click ‘agree’ when faced with consent screens, as consent screens are majorly flawed. Users mostly always opt in without reading and without being properly informed what they opt in to.
  3. Did you know you’re most likely being tracked from website to website ? For example, Google can identify you across visits and websites. One of the things you can do is to disable third party cookies by default. Businesses can also use privacy friendly analytics which halt such tracking. 
  4. Use strong passwords.
  5. Be wary of public wifi – hackers can easily access your PII or sensitive data. Use a VPN (virtual private network), which lets you create a secure connection to a server of your choosing. This allows you to browse the internet in a safe manner.

  A PII compliance checklist for businesses/organisations :

  1. Identify where all PII exists and is stored – review and make sure this is in a safe environment.
  2. Identify laws that apply to you (GDPR, California privacy law, HIPAA) and follow your legal obligations.
  3. Create operational safeguards – policies and procedures for handling PII at an organisation level ; and building awareness to focus on the protection of PII.
  4. Encrypt databases and repositories where such info is kept.
  5. Create privacy-specific safeguards in the way your organisation collects, maintains, uses, and disseminates data so you protect the confidentiality of the data.
  6. Minimise the use, collection, and retention of PII – only collect and keep PII if it’s necessary for you to perform your legal business function.
  7. Conduct privacy impact assessments (PIA) to find and prevent privacy risks (identify what and why it’s to be collected ; how the information will be secured etc.).
  8. De-identify within the scope of your data collection and analytics tools.
  9. Anonymise data.
  10. Keep your privacy policy updated.
  11. Pseudonymisation.
  12. A more comprehensive guide for businesses can be found here : https://iapp.org/media/pdf/knowledge_center/NIST_Protecting_PII.pdf

  Unsure of what information could be considered PII ? Check out this list of examples.

  Additional resources :

  • https://www.umassmed.edu/it/security/compliance/what-is-pii/
  • http://www.osec.doc.gov/opog/privacy/PII_BII.html

• What is PII ? Your introduction to personally identifiable information

  15 janvier 2020, par Joselyn Khor — Analytics Tips, Privacy, Security
  Most websites you visit collect information about you via tools like Google Analytics and Matomo – sometimes collecting personally identifiable information (PII).

  When it comes to PII, people are becoming more concerned about data privacy. Identifiable information can be used for illegal purposes like identity theft and fraud. 

  So how can you protect yourself as an innocent internet browser ? In the case of website owners – how do you protect users and your company from falling prey to privacy breaches ?

  

  As one of the most trusted analytics companies, we feel our readers would benefit from being as informed as possible about data privacy issues and PII. Learn what it means, and what you can do to keep yours or others’ information safe.

  Table of Contents

  What does PII stand for ?

  PII acronym

  PII is an acronym for personally identifiable information.

  PII definition

  Personally identifiable information (PII) is a term used predominantly in the United States.

  The appendix of OMB M-10-23 (Guidance for Agency Use of Third-Party Website and Applications) gives this definition for PII :

  “The term ‘personally identifiable information’ refers to information which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as their name, social security number, biometric records, etc. alone, or when combined with other personal or identifying information which is linked or linkable to a specific individual, such as date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc.”

  What can be considered personally identifiable information (PII) ? Some PII examples :

  • Full name/usernames
  • Home address/mailing address
  • Email address
  • Credit card numbers
  • Date of birth
  • Phone numbers
  • Login details

  • Precise locations
  • Account numbers
  • Passwords
  • Security codes (including biometric records)
  • Personal identification numbers
  • Driver license number
  • Get a more comprehensive list here

  What’s non-PII ?

  Anonymous information, or information that can’t be traced back to an individual, can be considered non-PII.

  Who is affected by the exploitation of PII ?

  Anyone can be affected by the exploitation of personal data, where you have identity theft, account fraud and account takeovers. When websites resort to illegally selling or sharing your data and compromising your privacy, the fear is falling victim to such fraudulent activity. 

  PII can also be an issue when employees have access to the database and the data is not encrypted. For example, anyone working in a bank can access your accounts ; anyone working at Facebook may be able to read your messages. This shows how privacy breaches can easily happen when employees have access to PII.

  Website owner’s responsibility for data privacy (PII and analytics)

  To respect your website visitor’s privacy, best practice is to avoid collecting PII whenever possible. If you work in an industry which requires people to disclose personal information (e.g. healthcare, security industries, public sector), then you must ensure this data is collected and handled securely. 

  

  The US National Institute of Standards and Technology states : “The likelihood of harm caused by a breach involving PII is greatly reduced if an organisation minimises the amount of PII it uses, collects, and stores. For example, an organisation should only request PII in a new form if the PII is absolutely necessary.” 

  How you’re held accountable remains up to the privacy laws of the country you’re doing business in. Make sure you are fully aware of the privacy and data protection laws that relate specifically to you. 

  To reduce the risk of privacy breaches, try collecting as little PII as you can ; purging it as soon as you can ; and making sure your IT security is updated and protected against security threats. 

  If you’re using data collection tools like web analytics, data may be tracked through features like User ID, custom variables, and custom dimensions. Sometimes they are also harder to identify when they are present, for example, in page URLs, page titles, or referrers URLs. So make sure you’re optimising your web analytics tools’ settings to ensure you’re asking your users for consent and respecting users’ privacy.

  If you’re using a GDPR compliant tool like Matomo, learn how you can stop processing such personal data

  PII, GDPR and businesses in the US/EU

  Because PII is broad, you may run into confusion when considering PII and GDPR (which applies in the EU). The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides more safeguards for user privacy.

  GDPR grants people in the EU more rights concerning their “personal data” (more on PII vs personal data below). In the EU the GDPR restricts the collection and processing of personal data. The repercussions are severe penalties and fines for privacy infringements. Businesses are required to handle this personal data carefully. You can be fined up to 4% of their yearly revenue for data breaches or non-compliance. 

  

  Although there isn’t an overarching data protection law in the US, there are hundreds of laws on both the federal and state levels to protect the personal data of US residents. US Congress has also enacted industry-specific statutes related to data privacy, and the state of California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act. 

  To be on the safe side, if you are using analytics, follow matters relating to “personal data” in the GDPR. It’s all-encompassing when it comes to protecting user privacy. GDPR rules still apply whenever an EU citizen visits any non EU site (that processes personal data).

  Personally identifiable information (PII) vs personal data

  PII and “personal data” aren’t used interchangeably. All personal data can be PII, but not all PII can be defined as personal data.

  The definition of “personal data” according to the GDPR :

  

  This means “personal data” encompasses a greater number of identifiers which include the online sphere. Examples include : IP addresses and URL names. As well as seemingly “innocent” data like height, job position, company etc. 

  What’s considered personal data depends on the context. If a piece of information can be combined with others to establish someone’s identity then that can be considered personal data. 

  Under GDPR, when processing personal data, you need explicit consent. You need to ensure you’re compliant according to GDPR definitions of “personal data” not just what’s considered “PII”.

  How Matomo deals with PII and personal data

  Although Matomo Analytics is a web analytics software that tracks user activity on your website, we take privacy and PII very seriously – on both our Cloud and On-Premise offerings. 

  If you’re using Matomo and would like to know how you can be fully GDPR compliant and protect user privacy, read more :
  

  • Learn how to not process any personally identifiable information – Anonymise IP addresses, user IDs, and order IDs
  • Matomo protects user privacy by talking the talk and walking the walk
  • Stay ahead of the GDPR with a privacy-respecting analytics platform
  • 11 ways Matomo helps you protect your visitor’s privacy

  Disclaimer

  We are not lawyers and don’t claim to be. The information provided here is to help give an introduction to issues you may encounter when dealing with PII. We encourage every business and website to take data privacy seriously and discuss these issues with your lawyer if you have any concerns. 

  Additional resources :

  • https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/identity-theft-statistics.html#identity-theft-trends-in-2019
  • https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en
  • https://iclg.com/practice-areas/data-protection-laws-and-regulations/usa
  • https://www.csoonline.com/article/3215864/how-to-protect-personally-identifiable-information-pii-under-gdpr.html
  • https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/key-definitions/what-is-personal-data/

• ffmpeg - how to use pipe with amovie parameter ?

  19 février 2018, par user1347009

  I am looking for a solution to overlay to mp3 files in which the longer one will be played in the background and the smaller one will continue to play like a loop with that.
  My current code is working without pipe :

  ffmpeg -i 'longer.mp3'  -filter_complex "amovie='small.mp3:loop=999'[s];[0][s]amix=duration=shortest" new.mp3

  This code works like a charm but what i want to achieve is this :

  curl "any-url-to-api-to-audio-file" | ffmpeg -i 'longer.mp3'  -filter_complex "amovie='pipe\:0:loop=999'[s];[0][s]amix=duration=shortest" new.mp3

  This code is not working and its giving me error as well,

  ffmpeg version N-89955-g118e1b0b33 Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg 
  
  developers
  
  built with gcc 4.4.7 (GCC) 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-18)
  
  configuration: --enable-openssl --enable-libmp3lame
  
  libavutil      56.  7.100 / 56.  7.100
  
  libavcodec     58.  9.100 / 58.  9.100
  
  libavformat    58.  7.100 / 58.  7.100
  
  libavdevice    58.  0.101 / 58.  0.101
  
  libavfilter     7. 11.101 /  7. 11.101
  
  libswscale      5.  0.101 /  5.  0.101
  
  libswresample   3.  0.101 /  3.  0.101
  
  Input #0, mp3, from 'morning_alarm.mp3':
  
  Duration: 00:00:28.06, start: 0.025057, bitrate: 128 kb/s
  
  Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p, 128 kb/s
  
  Metadata:
  
  encoder         : LAME3.97 
  
  Side data:
  
  replaygain: track gain - -9.200000, track peak - unknown, album gain - unknown, album peak - unknown, 
  
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
  
                               Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     
  
  0101  5088  101  5088    0     0  28080      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  160k
  
  Stream mapping:
  
  Stream #0:0 (mp3) -> amix:input0
  
  amix -> Stream #0:0 (libmp3lame)
  
  Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
  
  [Parsed_amovie_0 @ 0x26c76c0] Failed to avformat_open_input 'pipe:0'
  
  [AVFilterGraph @ 0x26c3d80] Error initializing filter 'amovie' with args 
  
  'pipe\:0:loop=999'
  
  Error reinitializing filters!
  
  Failed to inject frame into filter network: Invalid data found when 
  
  processing input
  
  Error while processing the decoded data for stream #0:0
  
  Conversion failed!

  All i want to do is to overlay two audio files via command line in which 1st audio file will be longer and the second one will be smaller.
  The smaller one will be repeated like a loop till the longer one play.

  Please tell me how can i do that ?