Chief privacy officer
executive responsible for managing issues of privacy laws and policies
The Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) is a senior level executive within a growing number of global corporations, public agencies and other organizations, responsible for managing risks related to information privacy laws and regulations. Variations on the role often carry titles such as "Privacy Officer," "Privacy Leader," and "Privacy Counsel." However, the role of CPO differs significantly from another similarly-titled role, the Data Protection Officer (DPO), a role mandated for some organizations under the GDPR, and the two roles should not be confused or conflated.
The CPO role gradually emerged between the late 1990s and early 2000s as a strategic response by companies to public concerns about the use, collection, and protection of personal information, as well as growing regulatory pressure. The establishment of a CPO signaled the rise of privacy issues from a purely legal or technical concern to a core issue in corporate reputation management and governance risk. The CPO's role aims to strike a balance between "competitiveness in data utilization" and "public trust and compliance obligations," promoting privacy protection as a crucial component of corporate governance.
The CPO role was a response to increasing "(c)onsumer concerns over the use of personal information, including medical data and financial information along with laws and regulations." In particular, the expansion of Information Privacy Laws and new regulations governing the collection and use of personal information, such as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has raised the profile and increased the frequency of having a senior executive as the leader of privacy-related compliance efforts. In addition, some laws and regulations (such as the HIPAA Security Rule) require that certain organizations within their regulatory scope must designate a privacy compliance leader.
In modern organizations, the CPO's role has transcended compliance, becoming a leader in ethical data governance and information transparency. Many CPOs typically have a higher education in law, business, or computer science, and extensive experience in privacy, compliance, or data management. They often hold relevant professional certifications, such as the Chartered Information Privacy Professional (CIPP), Chartered Information Privacy Manager (CIPM), or Chartered Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).
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