Hello Privacy Pros,

The privacy “Holiday Season” is almost upon us with the annual Asia-Pacific Privacy Authorities’ Privacy Awareness Week set to commence Sunday 1 May. Many organizations are making significant contributions to raise privacy awareness this year as part of PAW. Today, I’d like to focus on a new initiative being launched by CyberCX: the first annual Australian Privacy by Design Awards. I had the opportunity to speak with CyberCX National Privacy Lead David Batch, CIPP/E, on what underpins these awards and to learn more about what we can expect at the event in Sydney 5 May.

Stephen: Can you share with our regional privacy professionals the thinking behind the creation of these awards?

David: We are always being asked by clients "what does good look like" when it comes to showing customers a brand takes privacy seriously, and many times we can give them an opinion, but having comprehensive empirical evidence of what is being done across the market was something we thought was missing. The awards come off the back of research that CyberCX has done into the publicly observable characteristics of leading consumer brands’ “digital shopfronts” and how these map to the globally recognized privacy by design principles. This research has really highlighted best practices of consumer brands in Australia and we thought what better way to promote privacy than to call out those outstanding behaviors, and hopefully create a bit of competitive tension among brands to be leaders in this space. We truly believe that good privacy is good for business, individuals and humanity as a whole, so anything that could hopefully drive better practice in this space can only lead to a win-win situation.

Stephen: What sorts of categories can we expect in the awards and how are recipients identified and selected?

David: To identify the brands that were assessed for this year’s awards, they firstly needed to be a consumer-facing brand with a digital customer interface. We then identified 11 organization sectors and picked the top 10 to 20 brands in those sectors based on external market share and brand value indexes. Consulting with the various security and privacy SMEs across CyberCX, we developed over 120 different public-facing attributes to measure and mapped each one of these against one of the seven PbD principles. We developed a scoring methodology for each attribute based on what good looked like, what bad looked like and everything in between. When complete, this exercise revealed an overall winner for demonstrating PbD, and a winner for each principle — all of which are set to receive an award. We have also identified the top Australian government brand and the top Australian corporate brands for awards. Further, we will be also recognizing each industry sector leader.

Stephen: Tell us a bit about the event itself and what attendees can expect on the big night.

David: The awards dinner will be held at Doltone House, Hyde Park and will be a great opportunity to get together face to face once more. We have an amazing lineup of speakers, including a fireside chat with the founder of the PbD principles, Ann Cavoukian, and keynotes to be delivered by the Australian Privacy Commissioner and Information Commissioner, Angelene Falk and the Australian eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant. The event will be (emceed) by CyberCX’s Chief Strategy Officer, Alastair MacGibbon, who has formerly held roles such as the head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, deputy secretary of Home Affairs and the cybersecurity advisor to the prime minister — oh, and the inaugural e-Safety Commissioner as well! Given the lineup of speakers and the opportunity to learn what good looks like in PbD, it’s an amazing professional development opportunity for anyone in an organization involved in privacy, digital design, marketing or customer roles. As such, the IAPP will be giving 2 CPE credits to any persons who hold IAPP qualifications as well.

Privacy Awareness Week is set to be filled with opportunities to hear from privacy leaders and reconnect with your fellow privacy pros. Be sure to check out the OAIC’s list of PAW events to plan your week accordingly.

Until next time!