Short Paper—The Challenges and Issues in Implementing Personal Data Protection The Challenges and Issues in Implementing Personal Data Protection https://doi.org/10.3991/ijes.v10i02.29373 Theshvin Raj Ananthan () , Mohamad Fadli Zolkipli School of Computing, University Utara Malaysia, Kedah, Malaysia theshvin_raj_anan@soc.uum.edu.my Abstract—This paper discussed the challenges and issues in implementing personal data protection. As the cases related to the personal data breaches is increasing day-by-day among us, so any organizations, system, applications, software or technology components that deal with huge amount of personal data such as contact details, email addresses, addresses and others are in a higher risk sector as the data are valuable. This study highlights the challenges and issues such as the usage of IoT devices, social media, implementation of fourth industrial revolution and also the lack of awareness among users in the process of the implementation of personal data protection. However, all this challenges and issues can be resolved if the users follow the correct method or procedures. Finally, this fnding also elaborates some methods that could help users protect their personal data. Keywords—personal data, protection, IoT, industry revolution, social media 1 Introduction First of all, the advent of technology seems to have a signifcant impact on society in recent years. As we all know, the development of modern technology has made life easier for everyone. It can be said that these technologies and Internet made easier for each of us to access the system or applications related to medical, transportation, industry and also the education within a second of time. As the result, there are many systems and applications are being developed in order to fulfl the requirements of the users and also with some hidden agendas where the personal information of users being collected. Basically, it can be stated that our data on Internet is no longer safe as there are many identities theft on it. Identity theft or personal data breaches is a current issue that affects everyone who access the Internet [1]. However, the number of users who sharing their personal data online are increasing although the reports regarding infor- mation theft are also increasing rapidly. Nowadays, it can be said that everyone has the access to others’ personal infor- mation, whether it is a company or any users are able to jeopardize our personal data which we may not have volunteered by ourselves [2]. The main issue is the users are sharing private information such as number of the identity cards, name, contact details, email and others to a third-party software or application or even a system in order to iJES ‒ Vol. 10, No. 02, 2022 53