For families, companies, and even nations, there is a struggle between security and privacy. While an individual may have some expectation of privacy or right to safeguard his or her identity, ensuring security relies on monitoring and assessing all activity on a given network or endpoint in order to determine if there is anything suspicious or malicious going on.

The question is whether or not we can find a workable equilibrium that provides enough security and privacy at the same time. At the 2014 RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, Christopher Pierson, Chief Security and Compliance Officer of Viewpost and James Shreve, an attorney with BuckleySandler LLP, presented a session entitled “Security vs. Privacy: Who Is Winning?”

The two shed some light on the challenges posed, but also clarified some of the concerns and provided some insight into striking a balance between the two. In this day and age, privacy seems to be a quickly fading ideal.

When you use a credit or debit card, information is registered about where you were, when you were there, and what you purchased. Your smartphone reports your general location based on which tower it gets its signal from. There are surveillance cameras on just about every street corner and in every bank, retail store, gas station, and fast food restaurant. Your online activity is being monitored and recorded by a variety of websites and cookies.

In a nutshell, almost anything and everything you do is being watched and analyzed in some way. […]