Hello privacy pros,
This week’s regional update starts with flagging some upcoming IAPP events and then turns to a personal and professional update from me.
We have two KnowledgeNet events coming up in Australia this month:
- 14 July — Perfect Your Privacy (Story) Pitch: The importance of storytelling techniques in the business world (in-person in Sydney)
- 21 July — Privacy Maturity for Government Agencies (virtual)
Elsewhere in the region, registrations are open until 11 July for the IAPP Asia Pacific Privacy Forum 2022, taking place on 18 to 19 July in Singapore.
Turning now to more personal news, after nearly six years in Australia, I will be relocating back to London in August. Since this will be my last Asia-Pacific Digest as the IAPP’s Country Leader for Australia, I would like to reflect briefly on my time in the role.
Firstly, thanks to the IAPP’s J. Trevor Hughes and Tory Bell for trusting me to represent the organization in Australia back in February 2019, as well as to Jim Campbell and Daimhin Warner for their friendship and collaboration along the way. It was a pre-pandemic world when we started and I expected lots of in-person interaction with privacy professionals and organizations on behalf of the IAPP. We were lucky enough to get together in November 2019 for the IAPP’s largest ANZ Summit, then the world changed.
Throughout our various restrictions and lockdowns across Australia, the tireless effort of the IAPP’s volunteer KnowledgeNet Chairs around the country has delivered dozens of virtual events and a recent return to in-person events. These have helped us maintain our connections to each other, stay up-to-date on privacy topics, and increase the pool of privacy professionals in Australia through IAPP membership, training and certification. Our Australian membership has more than doubled over the last three years. None of this would have been possible without the work of our KnowledgeNet Chairs and I am grateful for their support of our profession.
Finally, I leave with thanks for the innumerable interactions with and connections to all of you that this role has facilitated. I have benefited from the wisdom of those who came before me and had the joy of working with enthusiastic people jumping into privacy for the first time. Our work continues to grow in relevance and importance across industry and society. The privacy profession is filled with wonderful, eclectic misfits from so many varied walks of life. We’re engineers, lawyers, designers, marketers and so much more. We’re pragmatists. We’re idealists. I am proud to count myself among you and to know that wherever I may be in the world, I have a home within the privacy community.
Until we meet again!