We’re at a watershed moment in privacy. With a litany of recent developments across privacy regulation, all signs point to privacy continuing to trend upwards in importance, both in the wider market and to the C-suite.
As companies navigate this ever-evolving and increasingly intricate landscape of data governance, privacy regulations and evolving consumer expectations, there’s a new leadership role on the horizon: the field chief privacy officer.
This is not the chief privacy officer you’re familiar with, though of course the industry needs those too. This role is more akin to the field chief technology officer, which has become increasingly popular in recent years.
So why do we need field chief privacy officers, and what does the role really mean?
Data Privacy Regulations to Know
Chief Privacy Officers vs. Field Chief Privacy Officer
If you’re already familiar with field CTOs, you might know they’re less involved in the day-to-day technical operations of the company, but they’re instrumental in aligning technology with business goals. They develop a company’s technology strategy and ensure that the company’s offerings truly meet customer demands.
The field CPO embodies this same strategic approach to privacy: they go above and beyond check-box compliance with regulatory requirements, working across departments — and with partners and customers — to ensure organizations are ahead of the curve when it comes to data privacy and set up to achieve their likely ambitious goals.
A traditional CPO is tasked with the organization’s own approach to privacy, building or buying systems to ensure compliance and developing and enforcing policies in partnership with other teams, like product and engineering.
Contrarily, a field CPO is able to take a more industry-wide view and bring to the table the perspectives of customers and partners, regulators and consumers, in order to help inform internal thinking and eventual strategy.
Why Are Field Chief Privacy Officers Important?
The heart of the field CPO’s role is to encourage collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the industry. At a time when it can feel impossible to keep up with state, federal and international data privacy regulations, being an active contributor to the broader privacy community is a huge area of impact.
The field CPO’s role is externally-facing. Rather than working with internal stakeholders, they work with privacy professionals, regulators and industry groups to help establish best practices and governance frameworks that prioritize user privacy, and then work in partnership with privacy practitioners to implement them.
The field CPO is out in the world: they’re attending and speaking at events, sharing ideas with peers and working to understand customers’ privacy-related pain. Then they’re working with colleagues in product and engineering to translate these learnings into concrete solutions.
Who Is the Ideal FCPO?
At this particular moment in data privacy, it’s vital that a field CPO — should your organization need one — be a well-rounded and well-connected privacy pro.
They should be someone with technical expertise, a sound understanding of regulation and the ability to work with folks from all different backgrounds and levels of understanding, from chief executive officers who know privacy is paramount but don’t know where to start, to deeply entrenched privacy professionals who are building best-in-class solutions.
It’s helpful too if they come with some baked-in community, because so much of this next phase of data privacy will come down to collaboration and cooperation.
Do You Need an FCPO?
A field CPO is for any business that’s selling privacy as a core component of their brand. Ultimately, not every company will need a field CPO, but it’s a good title to add at the many companies where:
- Privacy and compliance is a core component of your value proposition.
- Privacy is vital to establishing trust with your prospective and current customers.
- You desire to have a more active role in shaping policy and best practices specific to privacy outside of your own organization.
Even those who might not need a FCPO of their own stand to benefit from the increasing prevalence of FCPOs. I believe we can look forward to a faster pace of innovation and adoption of privacy solutions with the field CPO’s help, and both the industry and consumers will be better for it.
