Greetings from Portsmouth, New Hampshire!

It's annual IAPP Board Meeting time here at the IAPP home offices, and that always leads to lots of deep thinking about the future and the needs of privacy professionals as they will develop over the next 5, 10, even 20 years. We're lucky to have a board filled with creative minds and authoritative backgrounds. They walk the walk and talk the talk, as we say here in the United States.

On just about everyone's mind is that seemingly ubiquitous term: accountability. It seems so simple in concept, proving you do what you say you do, but everyone knows how hoary a task accountability is in practice. How do you show your work? A big binder of policies won't do it. Pointing to your privacy notice won't do it. Having your CPO give a PowerPoint presentation will likely fall short.

Many are asking for third-party validation. Which is why I'm so excited about the closing general session at our upcoming Asia Privacy Forum. I feel like we got that one just right. To hear from Apple, Google, TrustArc and Singapore's PDPC about how they see accountability and the promise that certifications or other mechanisms hold feels like a real treat. And to have Bojana Bellamy moderate? Is there anyone more likely to challenge and prod the group than she?

Of course, #APF18 (as the kids on Twitter call it) has plenty more to offer, including addresses from the commissioners of both the PDPC and the Philippines' privacy commission, but I'd swear that closing panel is your money's worth right there.

Hopefully, you can make the trip. If not, there's always next year (or Munich, or Brussels, or Austin...).

Cheers,
Sam