Notes from the iappANZ President, February 13, 2015

A warm thank you to all those that attended our kickoff event for 2015 on Wednesday at the offices of Gilbert + Tobin on the topic of a risk-based approach to privacy. Our headline speaker, Richard Thomas, was as eloquent and thoughtful as always and provided our audience with a bird’s eye view of the work being undertaken by the Centre for Information Policy Leadership.

We were fortunate to have Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim and NSW Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Coombs each providing a federal and state-based perspective, along with iappANZ Board Director Olga Ganopolsky providing a practitioner’s legal overview.

Dr. Coombs discussed a useful resource developed by her office on implementing a privacy governance framework, and Mr. Pilgrim announced that his office will be rolling out a privacy management framework in May this year to help organisations develop or review their privacy program. Mr. Pilgrim also invited organisations adopting a risk-based approach to privacy to work with his office to assess governance, a very collaborative approach to compliance and accountability that I think should not be understated.

Last week, I mentioned the emerging drone use in New Zealand; well, it looks like companies in Singapore are hearing the drone call with an article this week about a push for drone waiter technology. I wonder where the tips go? Between that and all the stories about Samsung Smart TVs eavesdropping on your lounge room conversations, what shocked me the most is that someone actually read Samsung’s privacy policy and discovered this little statement! So, beware how you phrase things in your privacy policies and the context in which they are read!

Also hitting the press this week, the privacy commissioner’s submission on the metadata retention debate where Mr. Pilgrim has called for mandatory data breach notifications as a safeguard.

Sadly, this will be my last letter to you via the iappANZ Dashboard Digest channel as it moves to a broader Asia-Pacific forum. I have thoroughly enjoyed connecting with readers via a weekly catch-up and therefore would like to continue to do so. Watch your iappANZ communications for a new format dedicated to bringing ANZ privacy professionals up-to-speed with the latest and greatest news, trends, regulator insights and more!

Stay well, and if you have any ideas, suggestions or comments, please let me know by sending an email to admin@iappanz.org.