This week I had the opportunity to meet just under three dozen federal public sector privacy professionals who signed up for two days of privacy training with yours truly.

You know, there isn't a week that goes by that we don't read about at least one (and often more) privacy incident involving a government department. Yet, oftentimes, the privacy training most public servants get is lumped into a couple of hours worth of ATIP training, where the focus is typically more on access, rather than privacy. I'm not naive enough to think that training like this is going to prevent all breaches and privacy violations, but when so many commissioners' reports highlight the need for training, again and again, it sometimes puzzles me that we don't see a greater investment in training. 

I'd love to know from our readers what it would take to have a greater uptake. Yet another scandalous breach?

Kudos to IAPP Canadian advisory board member Larry Kennedy, from Health Canada, who arranged for this training for a variety of departments and agencies in the first place, and to those who signed up and who are now studying for their certification exam, and to their employers, who decided it was important enough to invest in this area. Let's hope it's a trend that continues.