By Scott Schlimmer

The pandemonium that was 2020 is coming to an end and “normal business operations” are beginning to appear on the horizon. But there is no rest for the weary. Even when we’re clear of 2020’s quagmires and quarantines, we will face an uncertain “new normal” with “new regulations”. Here’s what we predict with regard to privacy during 2021 return to the office and “business as usual.

The Privacy Prognosticators May Be Scared

I get it, the prediction game is tough. None of the prognosticators predicted for 2020 that a worldwide pandemic would force everyone to work from home and turn most efforts into a Zoom-fueled scramble to protect new endpoints. Most all got it wrong in 2020.

And it’s showing in the predictions for 2021. Predictions seem less numerous and more conservative. As I’m reading through the privacy predictions for 2021 and I can’t help but fall asleep. I apologize if my snoring startled you!

“International privacy standards will increase.” Ooh!!!

“The importance of transparency will increase.” Aaah!!!

Forrester Research , steps things up a bit. “Regulatory and legal activity related to employee privacy will increase 100%” and “One in four CMOs will invest more in technology to collect zero-party data”. But is this all “too little too late”?

What in the world is going on here? Facebook got fined $5 billion for privacy last year, 312 times greater than the biggest HIPAA fine, and keep in mind HIPAA spawned its own industry). Equifax is still paying for its 2017 privacy leak and will be until at least 2024, and making me wonder to which nefarious places my cherished personal information has traversed. 

We just had the worst pandemic in anyone’s lifetime and the greatest workforce shift since the industrial revolution. The privacy industry’s top prediction for 2021 is that privacy requirements will increase? This would appear to be hubris at first glance, but truth can be stranger than fiction. Clearly the privacy industry is rapidly falling behind the curve. 

Ok, enough speculation and background reading. 

Here are the official ZenPrivata Privacy Predictions for 2021:

1. Privacy budgets will be dedicated and outside of the usual owners, as the Covid pandemic has forced an en masse digital transformation and migration for many organizations. This will trigger many new job opportunities for dedicated privacy professionals

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption will be slowed greatly by new state and federal regulation.Especially in the healthcare sector, where unfortunately AI is needed most.

3. The calculation of fines will shift away from record counts to other business metrics.

4. The US DHS, CISA and NIST will combine resources and produce a community lead standard that helps everybody manage privacy better.

5. The state of the art will expand dramatically from “scan, log and digital quarantine” to more intelligent systems that involve the business not just IT, such software with new entrants like ZenPrivata, will disrupt the current market and reshape the privacy landscape forever.

Scott Schlimmer is a former decorated CIA officer who has advised multinational companies on security and trained their security teams.
Scott is also the co-founder of ZenPrivata and holds the coveted Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.