Glossary for Identity Management, Data Security, Data Privacy & GDPR-compliance

An adequacy decision confirms that a third country has a level of data protection comparable to that of the EU.

Infringement of applicable data protection rules and regulations does not only result in liability to any person having suffered damages but may also cause the imposition of penalties and administrative fees by the supervisory authorities.

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES256) is a way of encrypting data so that unauthorized people cannot read it.

Engity stores passwords (and other secrets) using this award-winning hashing algorithm, which is currently one of the securest known algorithms for that purpose.

Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user, system, or entity seeking access to a digital platform, network, or sensitive information.

An attempt to gain unauthorized access to a system – or data – by simply trying out all possible combinations of access credentials.

Businesses rely on their processes to deliver services or products to their customers and, in fact, to do anything at all.

The Cookie Consent informs users of a website or service about how cookies are used on the site and asks for informed consent.

Cybersecurity is the protection of computers, servers and other online systems against targeted attacks.

Dark patterns are user interface (UI) practices that nudge users to do what's best for the provider, not necessarily the user themselves.

Most organizations, be it businesses, associations, corporations, or institutions, cannot handle all their processing of personal data fully in-house.

Data Protection is the idea of preventing the misuse of personal data.

The idea of a Data Protection Audit is to make sure that an organization is in compliance with the applicable privacy regulation and the data protection policies and procedures work as planned.

The job of a Data Protection Officer (short: DPO) is to make sure that a business or organization processes personal data only according to the applicable data protection rules and regulations.

A Data Transfer is a transfer of personal data from one person or organization to another.

When Engity signs issued tokens (for JWT, HTTPS, …), we use either the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA, with SHA-512) or Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA with Ed25519; depending on support by devices).

The European Court of Justice - ECJ (very technically part of the "Court of Justice of the European Union") is the supreme court of the European Union, whose task is to interpret EU law and ensure its uniform application across the Union and its member states.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is the highest supervisory authority for Data Protection within the EU and is responsible for citizens' data protection rights.

The General Data Protection Regulation, short GDPR, is the EU's data privacy and security law.

In Identity and Access Management (IAM), an identity is a representation of a user with certain access right to resources.

With an identity and access management system, users can be administrated and their access controlled.

An Identity Provider (IdP) provides authentication and authorization services for users.

The GDPR aims to be not just a set of rules on paper.

The location of computers, servers, and data centers is a central topic when thinking about the compliance of personal data processing.

A lock-out function is a security mechanism in IAM or access management that denies access to a system or user account after a certain number of failed login attempts.

Keeping pace with IT technology and saving costs and resources with managed services.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) combines various factors when verifying the identity of a user asking for access to a system or resource.

A password that can only be used once is called a one-time password.

Software where the source code is available in a free, open and understandable form is referred to as open source.

A passphrase is a sequence of words strung together used as a password while being easy to remember.

A password is a key in the form of "something the user knows" that gives access to digital accounts, devices, or information.

By using a password generator, strong passwords can be created.

A password manager is a tool that securely stores and manages a user’s login credentials.

A password reset is the process of replacing a forgotten or compromised password with a new one.

The attempt to gain unauthorized access to user accounts by trying a few commonly used passwords against many usernames or email addresses.

A password strength checker is a tool that accesses the strength of a password – as the name suggests.

The Privacy Shield is a legal framework addressing transfers of personal data between the EU and the US.

Safe Harbor was an inadequate tool for transferring personal data from the EU to the US.

The term scalability means the ability to adapt an IT installation or system.

Schrems I and II are two judgements by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that invalidated the transfer tools Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield.

Server, Data Center, Cloud Computer: the oil wells of the 21st century.

Single sign-on (or "SSO" in short) is a centralized authentication method that lets users access multiple applications or systems using a single set of login credentials.

Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) are a contractual tool enabling data transfers between the EU and third countries.

TOMs are technical and organizational measures to protect personal data and make data processing compliant to the GDPR.

The Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework (TADPF) is a mechanism to align differences in EU-US data protection standards that allows data transfers to the US.

A Transfer Impact Assessment (TIA) is a risk assessment regarding data transfers to third countries, in particular when SCC are being used as a transfer tool.

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is today the most commonly used security protocol for secure communication over the Internet.

The US Cloud Act is a law that gives American intelligence and law enforcement authorities wide-ranging access to personal data, including data of European citizens.