Serious Privacy

Send us Fan Mail Election day in the United States is quite the dramatic event in 2020. We may soon know who will be the President of the United States in the coming years, what the new U.S. Congress will look like, if there might be a chance of federal privacy legislation and an EU-U.S. adequacy deal passing in the coming years,  and if California Proposition 24 (the California Privacy Rights Act...

Send us Fan Mail Technology around the world changes quickly - fast and furiously. Unique companies solving problems we did not realize we had are hitting the market. For example, the development of always connected mobile devices has fundamentally changed the global banking system. Where before in many parts of the world people were devoid of having a bank account, nowadays a smartphone gives the...

Send us Fan Mail Putting the evils back in Pandora’s box just doesn’t seem possible - much like reclaiming privacy in today’s datacentric world. This week, Paul Breitbarth and K Royal hosted Rob Shavell, CEO and founder of Abine (rhymes with hey mine) to discuss consumer privacy controls related to online privacy. Just over a decade ago, the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) started the development...

Send us Fan Mail Events happen occasionally that reinforce each other in such a way that the sum of things is worse than you could ever have imagined: a perfect storm. You may very well say that 2020 is a perfect storm in itself. And who knows what November and December may bring. This week, Paul Breitbarth and K Royal invited Stuart N. Brotman , author of Privacy's Perfect Storm: Digital Pol...

Send us Fan Mail Wicked problems are those without simple answers. They are thorny, complex, multi-faceted issues. This episode of Serious Privacy by Paul Breitbarth and K Royal was pre-billed on social media as “talking anarchy” and “Serious Privacy-ing.”  In this episode, guests include Uber CPO and frustrated comedian Ruby Zefo , Godmother of Privacy Engineering Michelle Dennedy , and TrustArc’...

Send us Fan Mail If 2020 was not bad enough already, we lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18 , 2020. She was admired by many lawyers and legal scholars, not just in the United States - she was a legal giant, and a great advocate for equality for all. Paul Breitbarth and K Royal discuss the impact Justice Ginsburg had on the legal field and how she inspired respect and devotion.  Our homage goe...

Send us Fan Mail 2020 is the gift that keeps on giving. In this episode, Paul Breitbarth and K Royal revisit some of the issues discussed on previous episodes, but with a guest who has a unique global perspective. Our guest today is an American in Brussels. He is the Deputy Chief Privacy Officer of the US-based pharmaceutical company Merck . Chris Foreman has practiced law in London, Washington DC...

Send us Fan Mail This past week in privacy law saw several unexpected developments. When this podcast started back in January, the intention was to record a series of conversations between K Royal and Paul Breitbarth with an occasional guest or recorded conference panel discussion. They would discuss what had happened in a week, place privacy and data protection developments around the world in co...

Send us Fan Mail Privacy professionals as cosplayers - maintaining a sense of identity away from the hectic life of a privacy professional or managing stress in a healthy direction?  In this episode of Serious Privacy, we move away a little from data protection and over to the broader right of privacy. The right to be left alone, or the right to ensure you can be whoever you want to be, without yo...

Send us Fan Mail Privacy is the hottest new job market for attorneys and non-attorneys. Even more so when you consider the full range of data protection jobs. A few weeks ago, we spoke to Jared Coseglia with TRU STaffing about recruiting for functions in privacy. In this episode we look at the other side. What is it like for someone to get started in privacy, not by sheer coincidence like K Royal...

Send us Fan Mail Now this story is all about how our lives got flipped - turned upside down. We’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, we’ll tell you all about the privacy laws down there. Today, we are traveling virtually to the sixth largest country in land area and in its honor, we are flipping parts of the show. We are upside down, since we are going Down Under. Since the beginning of...

Send us Fan Mail With all the recent changes in privacy laws, it seems like a whole new world. Or perhaps not. In this episode, we connect with Travis LeBlanc , a well-seasoned professional with insight into government actions to discuss recent privacy developments through the lens of past actions. He was the chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Enforcement Bureau in the Obama ye...

Send us Fan Mail The privacy job market is booming! Chief Privacy Officer, Data Protection Officer, Chief Data Officer, Privacy Engineer, GDPR Expert, CCPA Consultant, Data Privacy Counsel, Privacy Risk Officer… And this is just to get started. Do a vacancy search with the word ‘Privacy’ on LinkedIn or most job-search boards and you will be shown a huge variety of functions around the world for ne...

Send us Fan Mail Privacy is not a luxury, yet marginalized populations are more scrutinized and adversely impacted. How do we build equality into the data and practices on using data? It is no surprise that in today’s day and age, data is ubiquitous. Every step we take is documented by multiple devices, from our smartphones and smart watches to street cameras, allowing for massive data sets to be...

Send us Fan Mail Privacy is like driving a car - lots of rules which change across borders and you need to look both ways before crossing the street. In both the US and EU, the Schrems-II decision on 16 July is a major development in data protection navigation. But we are just at the beginning of understanding all the consequences of the verdict of the EU Court of Justice . Don’t worry - also in t...

Send us Fan Mail The Schrems II decision is a Serious Privacy topic. Privacy professionals in the EU and the US had the 16th of July marked on their calendars for a long time. Today was the day the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union would publish their verdict in the case between the Irish Data Protection Commissioner on the one hand, and Facebook and Max Schrems on the ot...

Send us Fan Mail The world of privacy seems to be both growing and becoming smaller as privacy professionals around the world are grappling with similar issues amidst an increasing amount of regulation and enforcement. What are the hot topics on the minds of these privacy professionals? In this episode of Serious Privacy,  we issued an open invite to guests, welcomed a guest host Ralph O’Brien , ...

Send us Fan Mail The 1st of July has come and gone - the date that marks the beginning of the enforcement of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).  Not all companies are ready for CCPA enforcement. And many companies are confused among the many moving parts - the law and potential amendments, the regulations, the ballot initiative, and enforcement.   California’s Attorney General Becerra des...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to our 21st episode of Serious Privacy. There is no better way to celebrate 21 than to return to our basics and have a kitchen table conversation with our own Paul Breitbarth . This week, Paul will discuss his favorite privacy topic. We limited it to one topic - will he go for two topics? Does he have one overwhelming favorite issue in privacy?  With Paul’s background with...

Send us Fan Mail "Only K can save the world" -  from Men in Black III. This is one of K' s favorite quotes, but what are her favorite topics in privacy?  After many weeks discussing a huge variety of topics with our guests, it is time to go back to basics: a privacy conversation about our favorite topics while sitting on a sunny back porch, drink in hand. This week, it’s K’s turn to...

Send us Fan Mail Gaming! It’s all fun and games, right? Not really. There are hidden dangers in online gaming especially - dangers that many individuals don’t consider. When you are stuck at home for many weeks, chances are that you have downloaded one or more gaming apps on your phone, or purchased a game console for your living room either for yourself or for your kids.  Games are hot. But games...

Send us Fan Mail Personal data can often be a complicated side to critical business activities, such as mergers and acquisitions and bankruptcy. Since the beginning of the year, the world has been dealing with a global health crisis. But unfortunately, that is not the only crisis the world will be dealing with this year - by now it is clear our economy will take a serious hit as well. Companies wi...

Send us Fan Mail What do you get when you put an Englishman in charge of information privacy? A lot of experience, ideas, and expertise when it is Ralph O’Brien .  With all the news on the Coronavirus, one could almost forget there are still Brexit negotiations taking place. There is still a question whether the United Kingdom can obtain an adequacy decision from the European Union. Is the UK data...

Send us Fan Mail The 25th of May 2018 will be a day that is forever etched into our memories. It is a day Paul had been working towards for well over seven years by the time it arrived. For those of you who don’t remember: it is the day the GDPR entered into application, this week two years ago. What other topic could we possibly discuss in today’s Serious Privacy episode other than the first GDPR...

Send us Fan Mail Describe your perfect privacy career. Do the words “vibrant,” “brilliant,” and “high energy” come to mind?  Back when we still had privacy conferences and trade shows, you could sometimes meet someone that was so vibrant, so enthusiastic and so interesting, they would make the whole event. Emerald de Leeuw , Privacy Lead in EMEA for Logitech is that kind of person. She is a fellow...