Notes From the Executive Director

In a recent

article, Bruce Schneier dismissed claims that the age of privacy is over, asserting that people, even young people, still care about it. What’s different, he said, is that while the privacy attitudes of yesterday were aligned with the notion of secrecy, today privacy is about control. “A privacy failure is a control failure,” he said.

Schneier went on to forecast a dystopian future where market incentives encourage companies that use information to continually “ratchet down the privacy of their services while at the same time pronouncing privacy erosions as inevitable and giving users the illusion of control.”

How sad.

The world I see is far more promising and far more complicated. I know that privacy professionals across the world are working on meaningful controls to satisfy consumer expectations. I also know that organizations are struggling with the meteoric rise of technology and information, while at the same time trying to educate and inform consumers about the important changes in that upward trajectory. From where I stand, it is inaccurate to suggest that privacy pros, or the organizations that they work for, are conjuring an illusion for consumers.

Indeed, we see the difficult work of privacy across our membership. Today’s information economy has given rise to myriad tools to manage data. Audits, PIAs, data classifications, breach controls, “privacy by design,” self-regulation, and a multiplicity of global data transfer mechanisms all suggest that there is no trick to managing data in today’s world. And this toolbox suggests that privacy is not eroding, it is demanding better and more creative responses from both the private and public sectors.

Schneier certainly recognizes the complexity of today’s information economy as a significant hindrance to consumers’ control of their data. On that point we agree. But I am not cynical as a result of that reality. Every day I see the enormous efforts expended by our members for the goal of better data management. And that gives me great hope for our data-driven future.