I mentioned it a few weeks ago, but the deadline is really near now, so I’m going to say it again: Get your speaker proposals in to be considered to present at next spring’s Symposium and help the committee designing the program make it a worthy investment of your time and training and conference attendance dollars. 

While registration only opens for the event in February, I’m already getting inquiries from some of you about where and when the conference will be. The training and workshop days will be May 21 and 22 with the main conference being May 23 and 24. The venue is still at the Toronto Convention Centre, but we will be one floor higher, with even more space and hopefully a better opportunity to meet, greet and learn together.

While you put the Symposium into your calendars, don’t forget to catch up on this week’s news.

There’s a good editorial in the Toronto Star about the Stats Can fiasco of trying to collect detailed banking data. Canadians certainly seem to be seized with and concerned about this issue! There’s also a good piece by the CBC about their interview with U.K. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham. In it, she speaks about a number of things, including the international nature of data protection and, importantly, how Canada is falling behind because of its reluctance to implement meaningful oversight over political parties. Also, with pot becoming legalized, we are starting to see more and more stories about related privacy issues, given the sensitive nature of the information involved. I expect there’s more to come on this front. As I often say, there's no shortage of media stories, privacy issues or work in this area, that’s for sure. 

Read up on the latest and then have yourselves a good weekend. In the nation’s capital, we are expecting a lot of snow! Winter’s coming. Stay warm!