Looking beyond the horizon [UPDATED]

We are fast approaching an event horizon - May 25th 2018 - beyond which the privacy landscape will be changed forever.

As of today, most of the world respects the rights of individuals to control information about themselves that they consider personal, with the glaring exception of the US which treats personal information as merely another information asset, to be obtained, exploited and traded the same as any other. The changes brought about by GDPR will directly and indirectly affect the whole world, including the US in ways that are not entirely clear at this precise point.

The European Union anticipates the whole world falling neatly into line, playing the privacy game the EU way or facing punitive fines until they do. 

Some players in the US are making noises about continuing their exploitation of personal information with impunity, perhaps grudgingly paying their GDPR fines but only after a massive playground punch-up over whether the EU's rules even apply to the US, and without necessarily falling into line. [Cue cartoon of someone's eyes rolling like a fruit machine, stopping on $$$ $$$ to the sound of a ker-ching cash register or tinkle-tinkle Vegas coin payout.]

Some are talking about fracturing the Internet along the GDPR/non-GDPR boundary, maintaining different privacy rules and approaches on each side and somehow handling the not inconsiderable issue of personal information crossing the boundary. I think this is either fake news, panic, bravado or tongue-in-cheekiness, not dissimilar to those cranky but desperate suggestions to call the year 2000 "199A" followed by "199B" giving a stay of execution for the non-Y2K compliant organizations, perhaps, but a world of pain for the rest of us. 

This strikes me as an interesting perspective to get management thinking differently about GDPR, in strategic business terms. 

Another approach we'll be taking is to treat personal information as a valuable and sensitive information asset not totally dissimilar to secret recipes for herbs and spices, business plans, customer and prospect lists, and more - another opportunity to get management thinking differently about privacy. Securing personal info is not just A Jolly Good Idea for compliance reasons.

Those two concepts, plus the remainder of the awareness materials for May, are all aimed at raising awareness of the privacy and related issues. As always, we'll be supplying a blend of factual information, motivational suggestions, tools and techniques, metrics, strategic options, policy matters, guidance and more: if you think your GDPR project would benefit from any of this, email me - if you care about crossing the event horizon at full pelt on both feet anyway, rather than crawling exhaustedly across the line, collapsing dejectedly in a heap on the home straight, or sticking your head in the sand and pretending it won't affect you. We have awareness content on privacy and other information security topics ready to deliver today, and we're working hard on the privacy and GDPR awareness module for delivery to subscribers on May 1st, for sure. Will your GDPR/privacy awareness stuff be done in time? With just 35 days remaining, have you even started preparing it yet?! Good luck Jim.

[Added 20th April] Talking of heads-in-sand, what do you make of this?