While this may have been the year of Edward Snowden, it’s not surprising here in the IAPP offices to see that the year’s top stories focused on the practical aspects of privacy. The news of the day is all well and good, but the day-to-day operation of a privacy program is an animal that always needs feeding. Hopefully, we’ve given you some tools this year to make life a little easier and make your operation run more smoothly.

But there was quite a bit of news, wasn’t there? Privacy hit the mainstream this year in a way it never has before. The FTC, the closest thing the U.S. has to a national DPA, got a new head honcho. The NSA, used to working in the shadows, has now been picked over with a fine-toothed comb. The Safe Harbor, a lubricant of commerce for thousands of companies, is in some serious jeopardy.

We look forward to continuing to cover these stories for you in the coming year. If anything, you’ll see even more focus on regulatory and policy developments that are likely to change your efforts at instituting privacy on the ground. Our goal is to always make the news practical: What does it mean for you?

Finally, the privacy world lost a couple of its pioneers this year, in Alan Westin and Willis Ware. Please take some time this holiday season to keep them, and their families, in your thoughts, along with those others amongst us who may have experienced loss.

From all of us here at the IAPP, we wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and all the best for you and your families this holiday season.

1. Kick-Starting a Privacy Program
2. Ten Steps to a Quality Privacy Program: Taking Your Program to the Next Level
3. New FTC Chair Ramirez Points to COPPA, Mobile Space, BCR-APEC Alignment as Priorities
4. If Nine of 10 Employees Knowingly Breach Policy, How Is Privacy Possible?
5. Safe Harbor’s in Trouble—Unless You Ask the U.S.
6. This NSA PRISM Story Isn’t Funny … Except When It Is
7. Cookies’ Days Are Numbered, but Not Without a Fight
8. HHS Issues Final HIPAA Omnibus Rule
9. Westin’s Privacy Scholarship, Research Influenced a Generation
10. FTC v. Wyndham: Round One