The Privacy Advisor Podcast

The news of the Equifax breach hits last Thursday afternoon, and it’s the Target breach on crack, right? In the days since, there have been all sorts of news stories coming out about the breach, but we decided it would be a good idea to do our first ever “special edition” podcast, where we could give you some insights on what happened in the Equifax breach and what threads we should tug on for the sake of our own edification as privacy professionals. In this podcast, Jason Straight of UnitedLex, who's helped companies handle breaches for the last decade, talks about Equifax's breach and what we should take from it.

This episode of the The Privacy Advisor Podcast features a return guest. Chris Zoladz owns Navigate, a consultancy. His podcast is the most listened to episode since we started this thing, with almost 1,900 listens at the time of this writing. Besides the fact that Chris is a likeable and smart guy, the reason for that is likely because his first podcast with us was about how to prep for the General Data Protection Regulation. He told us all about the ways companies were getting ahead, or, in many cases, falling behind, and where privacy professionals should get started. In this follow-up episode, Zoladz talks to host Angelique Carson on what he advises privacy professionals do if they're not ready for the GDPR, and they know it. Hint: It's not a bad idea to prioritize your regulator- and consumer-facing processes.

Rachel Tobac went to Defcon last year to play Social Engineering Capture the Flag. And she won. The game? In front of a live audience, call unsuspecting targets and get them to give up data about their company. The idea of the game is to educate: If you aren't careful, the information you publicly share could be used against you in nefarious ways. This year, Tobac went back to defend her title. Here's what happened.

Joseph Jerome is privacy counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. He's worked in Big Law, caps intentional, but he's found his home working at the CDT. He's passionate about privacy on a personal level, which makes his job sort of a perfect fit. Growing up in the corn fields of Iowa, he's got an appreciation for autonomy, and it's not something he's willing to let go without a fight. For both himself and the betterment of us all.

It seems to be the experience of many privacy pro newbies, anecdotally at least, that many employers are looking for pros who have at least a few years of experience, to start, and, typically, they want them to be lawyers. But if everyone wants someone with experience, how does anyone get their start? In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, IAPP Westin Fellows Cobun Keegan and Calli Schroeder discuss what it's like to be just starting out in privacy and the strategies they've employed to get their feet in the door of this relatively nascent field.

Dipayan Ghosh has had a pretty interesting privacy career already, and he’s not yet 30 years old. He worked under the Obama administration in the Office of Science and Technology Policy as an advisor. He later went to Facebook, and now he’s earned himself a fellowship at New America, a DC-based think tank, as part of its recently launched public interest technology team. In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Ghosh talks about the ways in which his time at the White House helped him understand what kind of leaders are really able to push smart public policy.

In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Kirk Nahra of Wiley Rein talks about the challenges of working in the healthcare space these days, particularly, the challenges healthcare entities have in managing the multitude of third-party vendors and the “ongoing element of risk” involved in trying to ensure not only your organization is in compliance with regulations, but vendors are too. He also discusses the explosion of available data not covered under current healthcare laws, like the data from your wearable devices, and whether that data is regulated by any body of law at all. “We’ve got this enormous gap right now,” and the new administration isn’t particularly interested in figuring that out, Nahra says, but he’s hopeful U.S. state Attorneys General are going to pick up the slack.Want to keep up with new episodes? Be sure to subscribe to our feed.

In this special edition of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, celebrating the 50th episode, Max Schrems, Jay Edelson and Sam Pfeifle discuss what they've been up to of late. Here's a teaser: Schrems wants out of the privacy game; Edelson opened a new office on the West Coast, and Pfeifle's busy gathering the best content he can find to help you do your job better.

Tracy Ann Kosa sees a problem here. She sees the privacy profession turning into a compliance-based function, despite its early beginnings in advocacy. And it makes her angry. "I think we're losing the face of the data subject," she says in this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast. She sees the solution to this, at least in part, being that the profession develop a code of ethics that brings together the ideals privacy professionals want to stand for. Doing so, as well as using metrics to evaluate a privacy program's efficacy and making the process more scientific than simply conducting a PIA and calling it a day, is how the privacy profession will evolve to the next level. "These things are interconnected," she says. "The notion of measurement and where we go next."

Remember when we all thought the world was going to end once Y2K hit? Sharon Anolik, CIPP/US, spent her early days as deputy attorney for the City of San Francisco strategizing on how to mitigate municipal risks associated with it. Since that time, she's held CPO positions at companies including Ask Jeeves and Blue Cross. These days, Anolik spends most of her time these days helping companies with mergers & acquisitions at her consulting firm, Privacy Panacea. In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Anolik tells Angelique Carson, CIPP/US, abut how important data sets and privacy practices become in negotiating those deals. She also discusses a recent career high: When she got a call from HBO that they wanted her to consult with the company on an upcoming storyline involving privacy for the network's hit show, Silicon Valley. The show recently aired, and Anolik said screening it and seeing what of her advice the show incorporated was thrilling.