Why Celebrating Privacy Is More Important Than Ever

More Than Just a Defense of Forcibly Expanding #DataPrivacyDay to #DataPrivacyWeek

It’s Data Privacy Week, a forced expansion over Data Privacy Day, the international initiative to spread privacy awareness, celebrated on January 28.

I characterize the expanded privacy celebration as forced because none of the historical authorities that decreed Data Privacy Day have ordered an amendment to expand the initiative to Data Privacy Week. The Council of Europe — responsible for first introducing the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data for adoption on January 28, 1981 — hasn’t come out to introduce a new treaty or decree changing Data Privacy Day into Data Privacy Week.

It’s forced because privacy professionals don’t actually have time to celebrate. They are buried under the mounting privacy work that needs to be done, with the incessant global data protection developments happening every day, from Europe, to the United States, to China. Not to mention that there’s a huge shortage of privacy professionals to take on this work.

So why take the time to come up for air to celebrate privacy and spread privacy awareness not just this Data Privacy Day or Week, but at every…