Between the U.S. President's historic visit to the Federal Trade Commission to identity, privacy and data protection as priorities this year to the European Court of Justice invalidating Safe Harbor and the European Commission introducing the privacy reform that will change the privacy landscape globally, it's been quite a year for the privacy profession. Here's a look back at the top 10 stories reported in The Privacy Advisor, ranked by the number of reads each story got. 

1. Obama Stops by FTC; Announces Privacy Bills on ID Theft, Student Data, Consumer Privacy

In January, the White House made big news when President Barack Obama stopped by the Federal Trade Commission to announce legislation he’d later introduce on consumer and student privacy. He also outlined an updated draft of the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.

2. Cookies Are So Yesterday; Cross-Device Tracking Is In

While the cookie reigned supreme in digital marketing for more than 15 years, its dominance is under siege by a new wave of digital ID technologies and methodologies, wrote Michael Whitener, CIPM, CIPP/C, CIPP/E, CIPP/G, CIPP/US, CIPT. But just as consent was a concern with cookies, cross-device tracking is raising a new raft of privacy issues.

3. Safe Harbor Invalid, Rules ECJ

In a closely watched case, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) in October agreed with Max Schrems that the U.S.’s PRISM mass surveillance program unveiled by Edward Snowden makes the European Commission’s finding of U.S. adequacy for personal data transfer with the Safe Harbor mechanism invalid. The decision still reverberates today.

4. GDPR Is Here: What’s a Privacy Pro To Do Next?

December 15, the European Parliament and Council announced that, after years of negotiating, they’d reached an agreement on a consolidated text of a brand-new General Data Protection Regulation. Privacy pros globally had been anxiously waiting to read the new rules and now must put into motion plans for compliance.

5. With Safe Harbor Invalid, What’s a Privacy Pro To Do?

Without doubt, October’s historic decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidating the EU-U.S. Safe Harbor Agreement ruffled a lot of feathers in the business community, while reenergizing privacy advocates in the EU and abroad.

6. Third-Party Vendor Management Means Managing Your Own Risk

In a series of posts on effective and efficient vendor management, K Royal, CIPP/E, CIPP/US,  discusses steps to take to protect your brand, from risk assessments to contract provisions to ongoing monitoring. In this last post, Royal provides a checklist "to help you do due diligence holistically.”

7. Would a Law Degree Take Your Privacy Career to the Next Level?

This summer, the IAPP Privacy List lit up when a member posed this question to the group: Should I go back to school and get a law degree if I want to succeed in this field? In this piece, industry veterans discuss whether an investment in a law degree is worth the return.

8. His Task? Start Up a Privacy Program at a Start-Up

Earlier this year, Stephen Bolinger, CIPM, CIPP/E, CIPP/G, CIPP/US, was a new CPO at mobile identity start-up TeleSign. He joined in 2014 after seven years at Microsoft. In this quarterly series, Bolinger shared some of the strategic and tactical decisions he made and how they differed from decisions he would have made at Microsoft. This is part one, but be sure to catch chapters two, three and four, also.

9. How To Operationalize the PIA

In this piece, healthcare services company McKesson’s Michael Hamilton, CIPP/E, CIPP/US, and Patrick Curry, CIPP/US, discuss how they’ve operationalized the PIA at their company and the challenges they faced in doing so.

10. FTC’s Security Guide: A Sure-Fire Way To Stay Out of Trouble?

In June, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a guide to help companies navigate the murky waters of data security. Industry has long complained that while the FTC is willing to come after companies for breaking the rules, what those rules are have been unclear. This piece looks at whether the FTC’s guide helped bridge the gap. 

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