Hello from Washington, DC!

This week, we at the IAPP held our Global Privacy Summit here in Washington. It was, to say the least, a big event. Some 4,000 privacy professionals got together for education, networking, and basically having a good time.

Among those privacy professionals, of course, were regulators - we had roughly 40 countries' data protection authorities in attendance from all over world.

One thing that I was struck by was the relative sophistication and progressive nature of the Asian regulators. The data protection authorities from Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines all presented in various panels and showed off well designed materials and web sites, consultative approaches with sophisticated triage mechanisms, and resources to get out ahead of the big tech issues.

All this, despite privacy regimes that are, in the cases of Singapore and the Philippines, quite young. Clearly, these countries are making both a commitment to their citizenry, but also making a statement to the world at large. These are serious regulators looking to attract foreign investment and to be trusted data hubs and they showed it this week in spades.

Until my next trip to Singapore this July,
Sam