Building a Privacy Culture in a Conflicted Age

We often hear of the importance of building a privacy-aware culture at your company, but how often do we consider how daunting that task can be? After all, these employees who you are supposed to meld into privacy-protecting champions show up at your workplace carrying with them a web of assumptions about data protection over which you have no control. Your employee population is sure to include apathetic or cynical people who believe privacy is already lost, people fatigued by endless privacy notices, coupled with an ever-evolving regulatory landscape. They all participate in a culture that is deeply conflicted about protecting data. While you can’t control the beliefs your employees bring to work, there is still much you can control in your environment, and we’ll discuss both the challenges that you can’t control and the precise points where you can exercise control over the way your organization approaches data protection. We’ll present a model for thinking about building a privacy culture via a training and awareness program, and we will focus on the different actions and attitudes needed to succeed at building such a program. Topics will include: - The conflicted nature of popular perceptions about privacy, including new wrinkles introduced by the pandemic. - A model for thinking about your influence on company culture that focuses on what you can and can’t control. - Tactical and mental tips for approaching training and reinforcement that give you leverage in communicating with employees. - Strategies for finding allies across your business, including at the executive level. You’ll walk away with a useful mental model to think about how to influence your culture, as well as practical tips for finding success at various levels of influence.