In our inter-connected world, legal advisers to businesses that operate online are increasingly expected to know or be able to find out something about other countries’ privacy laws. Asia is one of the world’s most significant economic regions and it is important to understand how the data protection and privacy environments of Asian countries work.

ANZ’s privacy and data protection manager Hannah Johnston was a recent guest speaker at our last Technology and Privacy Forum for 2014 and she gave a comprehensive overview about what the bank – New Zealand’s third largest employer after its merger with the National Bank – was doing to protect customer privacy.

Some privacy commentators consider ‘big data’ to be a newspeak phrase that attempts to repackage older familiar terms like ‘personal information’ in a way that reframes the concept and limits the way people think about the privacy issues. 

I was honoured recently to speak at the 2nd Latin American International Data Protection Congress in Pereira, Colombia. Pereira is at the heart of Colombia’s famous coffee growing district and, like the rest of the country, is now a safe place to visit. Attendance was feasible as I was already booked to be in California at my own expense and the conference organisers met the additional costs to travel 5,500 km further south.

This week is Connect Smart week. That means you will see and hear about a number of initiatives that underline the need to be cyber-savvy and for people to do more to protect themselves online. The internet is home to networked convenience and fast information but it is also where identity theft, fraud and other kinds of nefarious things happen.