Greetings from Portsmouth, NH!

It's hard to believe that Summit is just a few weeks away. Staff here in the office are ramping up for our biggest annual event. We're really excited about this year's programming, from our new suite of active learning sessions to unique and diverse keynote speakers to a slate of networking events.

For those looking for extra professional development, the IAPP is hosting two forums on Thursday, March 29: One for privacy attorneys and one for privacy engineers. Like last year, the Privacy Bar Section Forum will feature thought leaders in the space to go over the latest data protection laws, the state of GDPR enforcement, and negotiating data processing agreements. 

New this year, however, is our Privacy Engineering Section Forum. This half-day event will gather together like-minded professionals interested in privacy engineering. The forum will include a practical session focused on "privacy engineering on the ground," which will include insights from privacy practitioners from Cisco, Google, Microsoft and privacy tech startup Senzig. Carnegie Mellon's Lorrie Cranor will join the European Data Protection Supervisor's Achim Klabunde on a panel moderated by Princeton's Johnathan Mayer focused on the regulator's view of privacy engineering methods. There will also be session dedicated to the "researcher's view" on privacy engineering and will feature insights from Naomi Lefkovitz, of the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation's Jeremy Epstein and the University of Michigan's Florian Schaub. 

If you're in privacy engineering or are interested in any related topics in this area, I recommend you check this out. 

While we're talking about privacy engineering and technology: This week, the Chamber of Digital Commerce hosted its DC Blockchain Summit. Though I didn't get a chance to attend or watch its webcast, I noticed that Microsoft released a new whitepaper on blockchain and cybersecurity. In a blog post announcing the release, Microsoft's Paul Nicholas said, "Our intention is to deepen the cybersecurity policy dialogue among blockchain technology providers like Microsoft, financial services organizations using blockchain and their regulators." 

Though mainly focused on "permissioned blockchains" — which are less public and more geared toward consortiums of organizations like banks — the whitepaper has some noteworthy recommendations and definitions for those interested in this burgeoning area. It recommends organizations adopt NIST's Cybersecurity Framework, for one, urges regulators to engage in a dialogue with the private sector, while also calling for harmonization of international standards for blockchain's use. This will be a fascinating area to watch in the coming months and years. 

I know what I'll be reading over the weekend.