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Privacy Impact Assessments

Our philosophy is straightforward: business goals should shape privacy requirements — not the other way around. While privacy professionals have long argued that privacy is a business imperative, the typical design of Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) doesn’t reflect this belief.

In many cases, PIAs are over-engineered, attempting to eliminate human judgment and subjectivity from the process. With each new privacy law, PIAs tend to grow in length and complexity, and the original intent — to genuinely assess and address privacy risks — gets lost. Over time, completing the PIA becomes a task to check off, rather than a meaningful step towards managing privacy.

Ultimately, accountability lies with people, not processes or technology. This makes open conversations the most valuable part of any privacy assessment. A PIA shouldn’t replace these conversations; it should document them.

  • A well-designed PIA is a record of the process by which we work together to:
  • Understand the business context
  • Document data practices
  • Identify privacy risks
  • Implement controls and safeguards

Learn about our approach in Meg’s blog post on why our PIA approach is based on accountability, not compliance.

How The Privacy Pro does PIAs


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