The Privacy Advisor Podcast

Ask anyone who frequents Defcon, known as a sort of summer camp for hackers, and they'll tell you the attendee roster at the wildly popular white hat event is overwhelmingly male. Rachel Tobac, chair of the board at Women in Security and Privacy, has been going to Defcon to compete in Social Engineering Capture the Flag for the last three years, and winning. She's gained some notoriety for it, including appearing on this podcast twice before. But noticing she was very much in the minority, she decided she didn't just want to go to Defcon this year, she wanted to bring women in privacy and security with her. An effort that initially saw two women winning sponsorships to attend ended in 57 actually boarding a flight to Vegas. In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Tobac tells us how it happened and why it matters.

It's rare to find someone who exudes passion for what they do. But you'll find it in Whitney Merrill, who’s privacy, e-commerce and consumer protection council at Electronic Arts. Merrill was named one the 2017 Top Women in Security, she did a stint at the Federal Trade Commission as part of a National Science Foundation program and she runs the Crypto and Privacy Village each year at DEFCON, for which she's working hard to up the number of women represented there. In this episode of the podcast, Merrill talks about her path to finding what she loves, and how early experiences with cyber bullying pushed her in that direction.

If you were to look at a heat map of where the IAPP has seen a particular frenzy of activity in the last year or so, the EU would undoubtedly be glowing red. Unsurprisingly, that's largely due to the changing legal landscape thanks to the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation. Because of that, IAPP Content Director Sam Pfeifle decided it was a good time to head from company headquarters in the U.S. to visit with some of our members standing firmly at the forefront of such a sweeping change. It may be surprising to some that Pfeifle has found privacy pros, while perhaps slightly panicked, embracing the GDPR as an empowering tool, one that's elevated their role and significance within the company; it's "given them the pulpit." In this episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, Pfeifle discusses what he's seeing on the ground.

David Reitman is a board-certified adolescent medicine specialist. Marc Groman served as the Senior Advisor for Privacy in the Obama White House. Based on their personal experiences and unique professional expertise, Reitman -- who's a specialist in adolescent medicine, and Groman discuss the challenges of raising children in today's rapidly-evolving digital world, where the pressures to be online are real. The prevalence of smartphones, social media, inter-active gaming, the potential for 24/7 online access, and data that's "forever" all present difficult issues for kids, parents, and policymakers. In this live taping of The Privacy Advisor Podcast, recorded recently live recently at the IAPP Global Privacy Summit, host Angelique Carson questions Groman and Reitman on privacy, security, responsible online behavior, mental health concerns, and the potential pitfalls today's teens face when navigating the online world. And yeah, there were a few laughs along the way.

It's hard to believe we’ve reached the final weeks of 2024, a year filled with policy and legal developments across the map. From the continued emergence of AI governance, to location privacy enforcement, children’s online safety to novel forms of privacy litigation, no doubt this was a year that kept privacy and AI governance pros very busy.

One such professional in the space is Goodwin Partner Omer Tene. He’s been immersed in many of these thorny issues, and as always, has thoughts about what’s transpired in 2024 and what that means for the year ahead. I caught up with Tene to discuss the year in digital policy. Here's what he had to say.