Once again, to mark Data Privacy Day (or Data Protection Day in Europe), we have released a new update to the Data Privacy Periodic Table – our industry-renowned open project to create a regularly-updated digestible guide to the confusing world of data privacy. You can download the latest version of The Data Privacy Periodic Table, here. This is its sixth update, and roughly three and a half years after its launch in September 2018, what have we learned?

A new administration in the most influential economy in the world triggers news hopes and expectations in every industry. But if major change were to be on the agenda, what would be the most beneficial, transformative, impactful or prudent new data privacy initiatives that the new US administration ought to introduce? Here’s my top three: The obvious – and trickiest – first area for the new administration is a federal privacy law.

2020 was a lot of things. Unexpected. Tough. Frightening. Frantic. It was also revealing. Most CIOs were asked to enable ways of working and doing business that they had not considered necessary before. Others had maybe always known such moves were wise, but had never been able to dedicate the time, resource or budget to such endeavours. Or, ironically, had never been able to prove the business case. Either way, too many were caught under-prepared.