There’s no questioning it: We are living through turbulent times. While it is easy to get wrapped up in what’s going wrong in the world today — and there’s plenty of it — I’d like to focus on some positives and then make a proposal.

One positive, in Canada at least, is that after living through two years of the pandemic, it finally feels as though we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And I believe that overall, we are emerging from the pandemic as a more privacy-conscious society.

The pandemic forced us to think about privacy in new ways and come up with creative, privacy-minded solutions to the challenges it posed. Contact-tracing applications, vaccine passports, workplace and travel screening, and work-from-home initiatives all engaged privacy and brought its issues to the forefront of public conversation. And privacy professionals played a fundamental role in helping governments and companies navigate those issues to ensure that public health and workplace measures took individuals’ privacy into account, and as a result, earned the public’s trust.

I, for one, was invigorated by how clients in both the private and public sectors rose to the occasion and didn’t compromise on their employees’, customers’ or the public’s privacy as they adapted to the pandemic’s many challenges. And I’m confident that as we move past COVID-19, or at least learn to live with it, these clients will remain steadfast in their privacy commitments.

And now for the proposal: As each day brings with it more disturbing news of suffering and destruction in Ukraine (and recognizing that conflicts also rage in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Yemen and many other regions), ask yourself what role you can play as a privacy professional to help bring peace and security to the world.

It’s easy to feel helpless in these times, but just as privacy pros helped our society steer its way through the pandemic, there is a role to play in ending conflict and assisting those who simply want to live in peace. Whether it’s by donating to organizations providing assistance in Ukraine and other conflict zones, offering pro bono services, or developing privacy-enhancing technologies to assist those living through conflict or suffering under authoritarian regimes, we each have a role to play.

So if you haven’t thought of it yet: how do you plan to help?