Happy New Year!

Though 2021 started off with the shocking chaos at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., I hope this will be the worst news of the year and that we’ll be getting better news from here on in. Like, for example, being able to celebrate getting a vaccine shot into one’s arm.

Do you have any resolutions for this upcoming year? Maybe this is the year you’re going to get a CIP_ designation. Or, if not the designation itself, maybe just sign up for more professional training. As a lawyer, I’m required to do a fair amount of continuing education, and this is partially accomplished by getting my educational credits for my CIPP/C and CIPM designations. Without the ability, at least in the first part of this year, to gather in person at the Summit or the Symposium, I’ll be getting my credits by attending some of the many interesting virtual KnowledgeNets happening all over the world. With the advances in virtual technologies that connect us all, I hope our various KNet chairs continue to work together to offer great programming. Click here to see some of the upcoming KnowledgeNet meetings that are planned.

Maybe this is also the year that you:

• Get the resources necessary to mature your privacy program. To that end, maybe you’ll start by doing a maturity assessment to find out where the gaps are.
• Do those PIAs that you know are a good thing. Spend the time upfront to prevent disasters from happening later on.
• Relearn the principles behind privacy by design, and have your team learn them, as well.
• Stay on top of legislative changes. In Canada, I’m predicting many of them for 2021.

Speaking of legislative changes, my business partner, Shaun Brown, has written a post in which he points out that the deidentification scheme in Bill C-11 may have unintended consequences. His post (shameless plug!) is here. And, in keeping with the issue of deidentification, Marty Abrams from the Information Accountability Foundation wrote another piece that we run below.

So, here’s another resolution for the new year: Take a few minutes every week to read the digest and keep up with what’s going on in this incredibly dynamic profession.