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Marking World Data Privacy Day 2025, Check Point Software Technologies emphasizes that data privacy has evolved from a compliance requirement into the foundational pillar of digital trust in the AI era. According to Ian Janse van Rensburg, Head of Security Engineering for Africa at Check Point, organizations must critically re-evaluate how personal information is collected, stored, and protected.
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In today’s digital economy—shaped by cloud computing, remote work, and artificial intelligence—data is the fuel for innovation and AI-driven decisions. However, as this data flows continuously across hybrid environments—between cloud services, SaaS applications, endpoints, and AI tools—it has also become the prime target for cybercriminals.
“Privacy is no longer a compliance checkbox. It is the foundation of digital trust and a defining measure of whether organizations are ready for the AI era,” says Janse van Rensburg.
According to Check Point’s African Perspectives on Cyber Security Report, African organisations now face an average of 3153 cyber attacks per organisation per week. Increasinly, attackers now focused on stealing, abusing, or extorting sensitive personal and corporate data rather than simply disrupting systems.
This shift makes Data Privacy Day more relevant than ever. Protecting personal data Today is about preventing misuse before it happens, not reacting after trust has already been broken.
Why Traditional Privacy Controls Are No Longer Enough
For years, data privacy strategies focused on policies, consent notices, and perimeter security. But modern data environments are highly distributed. Personal information now moves constantly between SaaS applications, cloud workloads, mobile devices, and AI platforms.
Check Point Research highlights that nearly half of organisations have at least one publicly exposed cloud data repository, often without realising it.
“Combined with the rise of phishing and credential theft — still the leading causes of data breaches — this creates a dangerous gap between privacy intent and operational reality, which are exacerbated by fragmented security tools that operate in isolation, creating blind spots across networks, users, cloud environments, and applications,” van Rensburg says.
“Privacy failures Today rarely stem from a single breach. They result from data sprawl, lack of visibility, and slow response, and without a unified, prevention-led approach, small exposures can quickly escalate into large-scale incidents,” he adds.
When Data Becomes Fuel for AI, Privacy Risks Multiply
Furthermore, artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed how data is used. AI systems rely on vast volumes of information — much of it personal or sensitive — to learn, predict, and automate decisions. That makes data integrity and privacy inseparable from AI safety.
According to Check Point Research, 91% of organisations using generative AI tools experienced some level of sensitive data exposure, with 1 in every 27 enterprise AI prompts posing a high data-leakage risk. These leaks are often unintentional, caused by employees sharing proprietary or personal data with AI tools that lack proper controls.
The implication is clear: privacy risks are no longer limited to databases and servers. They now extend to AI interfaces, collaboration tools, browsers, and cloud platforms — places where traditional privacy controls were never designed to operate.
“Protecting privacy now requires security controls that operate where humans and AI intersect – stopping data leaks in real time, not investigating them after trust has already been broken,” van Rensburg adds.
Privacy and Security: Two Sides of the Same Trust Equation
Data privacy and data security are often discussed separately, but they are inseparable in practice. Security protects data from unauthorised access; privacy governs how data is used responsibly and lawfully. Failing at either erodes trust.
As global regulations continue to evolve — from GDPR to emerging national data protection laws — organisations are expected to demonstrate not only that data is protected, but that it is used ethically, minimally, and transparently. This requires continuous monitoring, prevention-first controls, and accountability across the entire data lifecycle.
Securing The Full AI Stack – Not Just the Data
As organisations adopt AI at scale, protecting privacy also means securing the AI systems themselves. Models, applications, agents, and the data that powers them introduce new attack surfaces and operational risk. Without purpose‑built controls, AI can amplify exposure faster than traditional security teams can respond.
“At the same time, AI can be a powerful force for defense. When embedded directly into security controls, AI enables real‑time prevention — detecting risky behaviour, unsafe data flows, and anomalous activity before sensitive information is accessed, shared, or leaked. This prevention‑first approach shifts privacy from reactive damage control to continuous protection by design,” says van Rensburg.
What Data Privacy Day Must Represent Going Forward
Data Privacy Day should mark a shift from awareness to action. In an AI-driven world, protecting personal data requires organisations to fundamentally rewrite how security operations. This means :
- Reducing unnecessary data collection and retention
- Preventing breaches and leaks before data is accessed
- Securing AI and GenAI usage with clear guardrails
- Consolidating security and privacy controls to eliminate blind spots
“Data privacy is no longer a legal obligation alone — it is the foundation of digital trust in an AI-driven world. As AI accelerates how data is created, shared, and analysed. Organisations must move beyond reactive controls. They must adopt prevention-first strategies that protect personal information across users, networks, cloud environments, and AI systems.
On World Data Privacy Day, the message is clear: those who secure data by design will earn trust, resilience, and long-term confidence in the digital economy,” van Rensburg concludes.
Privacy is no longer just about compliance. It is about maintaining trust — with customers, employees, and society at large.
