Can privacy be saved? Maybe

Thanks to the explosion of social networking and all those nifty Web apps people use to bank and shop online, the bad guys now have an endless supply of attack vectors to steal personal data. In fact, some security industry experts have declared privacy dead.

Whatever the case may be, companies are increasingly under the regulatory gun to keep customer, employee and supplier data safe from prying eyes. At the CSO Security Standard Tuesday, attendees got a taste of what General Electric is doing to meet the challenge.

Nuala O'Connor Kelly, senior counsel and chief privacy leader for GE, started with a question for the audience: What is privacy? Answer: The right-ability to CONTROL how your personal information is used. The trick for GE is the same as it is for most organizations -- how to achieve security without setting off animosity someone might feel about being violated.