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This week, I joined a casual, fun and informative virtual IAPP KnowledgeNet organized by Edmonton Chairs Katrina Regan-Ingram, CIPP/C, and Laura Valente, CIPM. Similar to the one Sean McEachern, CIPP/C, put together in Regina last month, it was a great chance to share insights on the history, present and future of the IAPP, especially the organization's ongoing work in Canada.
After my opening remarks, we went around the virtual table, meeting new privacy pros, learning about their workplaces, and discussing current challenges. The KnowledgeNet chairs also gathered ideas for future sessions.
While I didn't keep an official tally, three topics clearly stood out — aside from several Alberta-specific ones: keeping pace with artificial intelligence laws, best practices and emerging technologies; strengthening collaboration among data-related fields of privacy, AI and cybersecurity; and de-identification, anonymization and synthetic data generation.
The third point, in particular, caught my attention because it frequently arises in my "regular" job. Actually, I'm not sure what my regular job is anymore, so I'm referring to my job as a lawyer advising organizations on data, cyber and AI issues. For instance, this week a client mentioned they had older personal data from a medical trial they wanted to archive in the U.S. My immediate advice was to consider deidentifying or, better yet, anonymizing the data first.
These three topics that were of so much interest to the folks at the Edmonton KnowledgeNet reminded me of an upcoming event right after the IAPP Canada Privacy Symposium 2025 in May: the 2025 Synthetic Data Summit. It's a more intimate gathering than the Symposium — and not just for privacy pros — packed with practical discussions in an extremely cool venue in Old Montreal.
It's organized by the Electronic Health Information Laboratory and organized by the world-famous Khaled El Emam — a guy who knows a few things about anonymization, deidentification and synthetic data, and who also has an appreciation for a good glass of red wine at the right moment. Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim will deliver the keynote in which I expect she will, among other things, emphasize the importance of responsible use of data to do many good things. I think the idea is to make synthetic data approachable and practical, highlighting real-world use cases from health care and industry experts.
Even if you're not deeply technical — I'm certainly not —it's a great opportunity to learn how synthetic data can help address privacy and innovation challenges in clear, relatable terms, and also see how AI is being applied and having an impact in all sorts of interesting and important ways.
I'm looking forward to seeing many of you at the IAPP Symposium in Toronto — it's one of the highlights of the year. And if you're interested in diving into synthetic data and privacy enhancing tech, consider extending your week of learning and networking with a visit to Montreal.
Kris Klein, CIPP/C, CIPM, FIP, is the managing director, Canada, for the IAPP.
This article originally appeared in the Canada Dashboard Digest, a free weekly IAPP newsletter. Subscriptions to this and other IAPP newsletters can be found here.
