The Privacy Advisor Podcast

In episode two of The Privacy Advisor Podcast's miniseries on robocalls, Andy Curry, the Information Commissioner's Office's enforcement group manager, discusses how the U.K has worked to thwart illegal robocalls. The UK ICO regulates under the Data Protection Act and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. It has the Telephone Preference Service, akin to the do-not-call list in the U.S., which it can fine callers for violating. The office got the power to fine in 2011 because it recognized an increasingly rapid problem. In fact, the ICO just yesterday announced a fine with two companies, IAG Nationwide Limited — which will pay 100,000 pounds, and a company called Costelloe and Kelly Limited — which will pay 19,000 pounds for nuisance calls. While in the U.S., the FTC and FCC struggle to shrink the number of complaints streaming into their agencies, the U.K. has found numbers declining. Editor Angelique Carson reports. 

David Reitman is a board-certified adolescent medicine specialist. Marc Groman served as the Senior Advisor for Privacy in the Obama White House. Based on their personal experiences and unique professional expertise, Reitman -- who's a specialist in adolescent medicine, and Groman discuss the challenges of raising children in today's rapidly-evolving digital world, where the pressures to be online are real. The prevalence of smartphones, social media, inter-active gaming, the potential for 24/7 online access, and data that's "forever" all present difficult issues for kids, parents, and policymakers. In this live taping of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, recorded recently live recently at the IAPP Global Privacy Summit, host Angelique Carson questions Groman and Reitman on privacy, security, responsible online behavior, mental health concerns, and the potential pitfalls today's teens face when navigating the online world. And yeah, there were a few laughs along the way.

Robocalls. We've all gotten them. In fact, an estimated 90 billion robocalls are placed in the U.S. alone each day. Approximately 2.5 billion a month. It's the number one complaint the Federal Communications Commission hears, and it's their number one enforcement priority right now. Sometimes, the calls are even scary, claiming you'll be arrested or taken to court if you don't respond immediately. But who are these people making robocalls? Why is it an on-the-rise crime? And if regulatory agencies are struggling to find a fix to the problem, who will? This podcast is the first in a series on robocalls, in which we look at the problem in the U.S. and abroad and examine what's being done to stop them. 

The ad tech industry is facing a crises of sorts, depending on who you ask. The big deal is that the GDPR, and the ePrivacy Regulation to follow, place importance on transparency and user consent. And to date, those are two things the ad tech industry has been sort of lucky enough to be able to run on without a whole lot of. We’re being tracked by so many parties online. And none of us are really aware of by whom, and how these entities have our data in order to track us. There are a lot of deals made between first parties and third parties on access to our data and the ability to then serve us targeted ads. It's one of those things like health insurance, that feels too overwhelming t try to understand. But really, this is the backbone of online commerce, so it is super important for us to understand.  In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Matthias Mattheison, who heads the Interactive Advertising Bureau in Brussels, describes the problems at hand and IAB's proposed solutions. Solutions not everyone agrees with. 

Jennifer Baker makes a career out of knowing the nuances of data protection and data privacy. But she's she's not advising clients or writing privacy policies. Rather, as a freelance journalist, reporting on the developments that often guide the decision making of those who do. Baker has spent years developing sources inside European institutions and businesses, and in this episode of The Privacy Advisor, host Angelique Carson talks with Baker about reporting on the privacy beat from Brussels. 

You may have heard Johnny Ryan on this podcast before. Last year, he came on to talk about the ad tech industry and what needs to happen within it for it to thrive under the General Data Protection Regulation. Ryan says, while there's some movement in the direction he thinks will best serve the industry -- namely, advertising without collecting any personal data online at all, there isn't enough. He's worried that if ad tech companies don't transition, and fast, the economic impact will be something akin to the financial meltdown the U.S. faced a few years back. In this episode, Ryan discusses what he believes needs to change, and how, for the industry to save itself.

If you were to look at a heat map of where the IAPP has seen a particular frenzy of activity in the last year or so, the EU would undoubtedly be glowing red. Unsurprisingly, that's largely due to the changing legal landscape thanks to the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation. Because of that, IAPP Content Director Sam Pfeifle decided it was a good time to head from company headquarters in the U.S. to visit with some of our members standing firmly at the forefront of such a sweeping change. It may be surprising to some that Pfeifle has found privacy pros, while perhaps slightly panicked, embracing the GDPR as an empowering tool, one that's elevated their role and significance within the company; it's "given them the pulpit." In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Pfeifle discusses what he's seeing on the ground. 

It's rare to find someone who exudes passion for what they do. But you'll find it in Whitney Merrill, who’s privacy, e-commerce and consumer protection council at Electronic Arts. Merrill was named one the 2017 Top Women in Security, she did a stint at the Federal Trade Commission as part of a National Science Foundation program and she runs the Crypto and Privacy Village each year at DEFCON, for which she's working hard to up the number of women represented there. In this episode of the podcast, Merrill talks about her path to finding what she loves, and how early experiences with cyber bullying pushed her in that direction. 

Gabe Maldoff is a young guy. He graduated law school in 2015, got himself a fellowship at the IAPP's Westin Center, and then immediately went to work at London's Bird & Bird. And just as he was adjusting to life in the real world, the world itself was adjusting to what would be expected of it under Europe's new privacy regime via the GDPR. In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Maldoff talks to host Angelique Carson about how his early experiences in Tanzania shaped his future career, establishing himself at this unprecedented time in privacy and data protection, and his predictions for U.K. data protection policies post-Brexit. 

As we reported in the Daily Dashboard yesterday, The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday morning to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act for six years. An alternative bill put forth by Reps. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., was voted down. The alternative bill, which garnered support from liberal and conservative civil liberties lawmakers, would have required that the government get a warrant prior to searching through the data of American citizens. Prior to the vote Thursday morning, President Donald Trump tweeted out two conflicting posts about Section 702, prompting House Democrats to ask for a delay in the House vote. In this episode, IAPP Westin Fellow Lee Matheson talks to Angelique Carson about what privacy pros should know about yesterday's vote and what it means for coming days.