Greetings from Brussels!

What a week it's been here at the IAPP Europe Data Protection Congress. The growth of this event over the years is astounding, and we're happy to announce it is now officially our second-biggest event behind the Global Privacy Summit in Washington, DC. 

The DPC's growth says a lot about the massive privacy developments in Europe in recent years (yes, I'm talking about you, GDPR), and, as was evidenced Thursday, things are just getting started. New Special Rapporteur for the ePrivacy Regulation Birgit Sippel presented a stunning call for "abolishing surveillance-driven advertising" in the proposed law. Just like its GDPR cousin, the ePrivacy Regulation will affect U.S. companies in deep and expansive ways and likely challenge a host of business models across industry verticals, not just the marketing and telecommunications sectors.

Be assured we'll be here to keep you updated and informed on the latest developments and guidance. 

Visiting Europe is always a valuable experience. It was great meeting so many of our European members and learning more about the data protection issues on this side of the Atlantic. It goes without saying that much of what is happening over here is going to have a powerful effect on the U.S. 

Back in the States, executives for Equifax and Yahoo, which have experienced two of the biggest data breaches of all time, faced tough questions from U.S. senators this week. According to Equifax, it's now spending four times as much on data protection as it did before the breach. Hopefully C-suites are paying attention to this scrutiny. It's clear privacy and security teams need funding to implement robust programs to prevent such breaches elsewhere, so hopefully there's an upside. 

Section 702 reform continues to gather steam, too, as competing proposals were introduced this week. The clock is ticking on this significant national security provision. Expect a lot more coverage of this in the coming weeks. 

Finally, IAPP Westin Fellows Muge Fazlioglu and Lee Matheson shared a comprehensive update for Europeans on the latest developments in U.S. privacy law. Be sure to check out their slide deck here. 

Today, I'll be heading to the University of Leuven to attend what should be an excellent event on privacy engineering. More on that next week when I'm back in the States. 

Cheers!