Perspectives on Communication with Guest Lourdes M. Turrecha, Founder, The Rise of Privacy Tech

The Perspective on Communication Q&A series highlights the experiences and opinions from some of the cross-functional disciplines that we, as security and privacy communicators, work with most.

I am very honored to feature insights from Lourdes on our blog today. She’s an inspiring force within the privacy tech community, and the broader privacy industry; certainly one of the most ethical and principled people I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. I recently had the chance to ask her a few questions about her experience and thoughts on communications in privacy.

What was the privacy tech field like when you got started in this profession? What’s changed the most?

When I first started in privacy, the privacy tech industry was almost non-existent. Yes, there were a handful of privacy companies that automated privacy program workflows or provided privacy rules libraries, but there weren’t any developer privacy tech tools like the “shift left privacy” trend we’re seeing today. We cover this in the foundational TROPT Defining the Privacy Tech Landscape Whitepaper 2021.

What’s changed the most is the rise of privacy tech and innovation. For the first time in history, founders, technologists, investors, regulators, consumers, and enterprise customers are in agreement with privacy domain experts and consumer advocates that privacy is one of the most critical issues of our time. We need privacy innovation to help solve our privacy problems and the resulting mounting privacy technical debt. It’s truly an exciting development — one that compelled me to leave the highly lucrative privacy practice, walk away from a shit-ton of money, and invest my own money, time, and energy towards fueling privacy tech and innovation through The Rise of Privacy Tech (TROPT).

Tell me more about your decision to transition from legal practice to founding The Rise of Privacy Tech and supporting the growth of privacy tech innovation. What problem(s) do you want to fix?

After working with more than a hundred startups, tech companies (including Silicon Valley tech cos), Fortune companies, and multinational corporations in my former privacy law practice, something felt off. The threshold inquiry posed to me by most — not all — of my former clients was oftentimes, “Can we get away with this under current applicable privacy laws?” While compliance is important, it should be the baseline inquiry, not the end of the privacy discussion. Organizations — especially tech companies that hold themselves as innovative — should broaden their privacy positions from a compliance-based one, to one that takes into account privacy’s value, competitive advantage, brand implications, and ethical ramifications.

I want to help address the mounting privacy technical debt resulting from decades’ worth of “innovation” or technologies built without much regard for privacy. Because law will always lag behind tech, I felt it was right to shift from my former privacy work (focusing on privacy law, privacy policy-influencing, privacy compliance program building, privacy incident response, and forcing privacy by design and engineering on inherently privacy-flawed products) to helping fuel privacy tech and innovation, by working on technologies that solve some of today’s privacy problems.

I founded TROPT to create a place for the privacy tech industry key players — founders, investors, domain expert-advisors, and user-buyers — to come together, realize privacy tech’s value, and move the needle on privacy, instead of sitting around and waiting for policymakers and regulators to give us the privacy solutions we’ve been asking for. As privacy innovators, privacy tech key players can help build technological solutions to some of our privacy problems, and help fuel the privacy tech industry.

How has the way you think about strategy communications changed over the course of your career as you’ve moved through different roles at different organizations?

I like to defer to you (Melanie) when it comes to the communications domain given you’re the leading privacy and security communications expert out there. But my two cents: I’ve always liked to tackle any type of strategy beginning with why. A first principles approach keeps me honest, including when I’m communicating any form of strategy. When it comes to communications, in particular, beyond keeping first principles in mind, I’ve had to learn and remind myself to identify who my intended audience is, so I can put myself in their shoes, figure out their needs, and communicate my needs in a way that at least resonates with them.

That’s a great approach!

A lot of companies are now pushing marketing messaging about privacy, but do their broader reputation and business practices affect the way you think about their commitment to privacy?

Absolutely, in my opinion, organizations’ privacy walk (their privacy practices) needs to support their privacy talk (their market messaging). I truly believe this position, and not just because I’m inherently biased: my love language is acts of service, not words of affirmation. ;) But I digress; at the end of the day, people — may they be consumers, business users, regulators, consumer advocates — are going to see through words and hold them against actions. If the two don’t add up, they will inevitably result in broken trust. This is true in every aspect of life, both in personal and business relationships. At the end of the day, we can’t forget about information relationships just because these relationships are digital or online. There is a person on the other end of that online transaction whose personal information we’re handling. How we handle their personal information plus the decisions we make based on such information will impact these people. It’s our duty to ensure that we handle their personal information in a way that doesn’t cause them privacy harm, and also creates value for them.

What’s the best communications advice you ever got?

Listen.

No argument there. Excellent advice.

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