We haven’t exactly had a strong past year in the data security and privacy world. While concerns about data privacy have been snowballing for years, we’ve only recently unearthed the most controversial of issues, from Facebook privacy standards to Russian probing of the U.S. elections. If one thing has been made clearer in 2018, it’s this: no individual or business is immune to the threat of a data breach or attack.

Beyond the threat of massive data breaches, our daily lives are changing because of access to data as well. In 2016, Americans got about 2.4 billion unwanted phone calls a month, thanks to companies obtaining consumer data including personal phone numbers. One new report even claims that in 2019, almost half (45 percent) of all U.S. mobile traffic will be attributable to scam calls. The same phenomenon already happened across email and most of us likely felt its toll on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when it suddenly felt like every retailer had access to our email address. Consumer data, including phone numbers and email addresses, are being accessed by unwanted parties whether by data acquisition, hacks, breaches or other events.