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PSR 2017 in Review

After a long trip from the northeast to San Diego, I finally made it to another exciting Privacy, Security, and Risk Conference from the IAPP. With GDPR on the horizon, the air was thick with discussion of this regulation in effect in May of next year. Even more so, a lot of questions received at the Privacy Ref booth were focused on this law, or preparing a privacy program through assessments data mapping. Overall, a great show with a few major themes.

More tools than before

We like to recommend tools or services to our clients and keep up with as many vendors as possible. This year, while scoping out the exhibit hall, I noticed one tool seeing more attention is consent management. While I discussed some of the issues around consent in my previous blog post, it is important to be able to manage consent in an effective way when it is used. Many organizations are now offering tools that assist with this. At Summit back in April, I saw two vendors, that I can remember, offering this service, and now at PSR, there were at least five.

GDPR, never heard of it

This is a phrase that was not once uttered at PSR. Every person with a presence in Europe was looking for ways to improve their program or how to prepare for GDPR. A lot of this was focused on doing assessments of the existing environment or an inventory of the data they currently have. These are both great ways to start, knowing where you stand, to prepare for GDPR’s launch next year. Of course, this collectively ties to all the show’s offered services, many of which are looking to solve a part of the GDPR equation.

Awesome meeting everyone

One of the best parts of PSR, and other privacy events, is meeting everyone from all of the different companies and organizations. From video game creators, government organizations, and Google, there was a diversity of privacy professionals and discussions. For this fact alone, I cannot express enough my recommendation of attending these types of events. I am looking forward to Summit in 2018, a month before GDPR goes into effect, where I can see everyone again.

Announcements

Privacy Ref also announced our partnership with Cyber Defenses in order to provide training on GDPR and other privacy topics. You can learn more about this on our website or visit the Cyber Defenses page to find dates and times of training. Both in person and remote trainings are available.