Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)

The chief privacy officer (CPO) is an executive officer responsible for the balance between consumer and employee demand for privacy and the organizational need for information. The position is generally highranking and often reports directly to the chief executive officer (CEO). Depending on the size of the organization, the CPO may need to put together a team of experts and stakeholders in the form of a privacy board. It is not limited to the private sector, and it can also be found in governmental organizations. The position is a recent development in the organizational structure with the first corporate CPOs having been hired in the late in 1990s.

The CPO's job essentially revolves around satisfying the needs of privacy stakeholders and avoiding privacy-related risks while enabling reasonable data collection by the organization. The main deliverables of the job are the so-called privacy policy and the resulting privacy program. Finally, the CPO must conduct periodic audits of the organizational compliance with the privacy policy and laws, the organization's implementation of the privacy program, the media and political environments, and the state of organizational technology. The CPO position is interdisciplinary in nature and involves expert knowledge of legal matters and information systems (IS), especially in the area of security. In addition to understanding these two fields, the CPO must also communicate with marketing, human resources (HR), and public relations (PR) departments.

Privacy Stakeholders

The primary stakeholders that the CPO has to consider in developing the privacy policy and program are the individual consumers, the employees, and business-to-business (B2B) customers.

Individual Consumers

The organization's customers represent an essential source of its marketing data. For example, consider the implementation of grocery store membership card programs. The programs require customers to use their membership cards to get the advertised savings. When the customer scans the card at the checkout stand, the entire purchase list is stored for future analysis. The stores can use the obtained information for marketing trend analysis and to tailor specific offers for that particular customer. Most grocery store customers consider the programs fairly innocuous to their privacy since the system stores only a list of their purchases. However, as additional information, such as credit card numbers and prescription medications, are added to the database, customers might see the program in a different light. Changes in how customers see the organization is of concern to CPOs of both physical and virtual store fronts. After all, while collecting and analyzing such information may be legal, consumers may not always agree that it is ethical. The resulting decrease in trust toward the organization may then not only negatively impact its image but also its revenue.

B2B Customers

Organizations that cater to businesses may face data protection concerns from these types of customers as well. Business clients are primarily concerned about the sharing of insider data and corporate trade secrets. Consider the following service option offered by several companies providing server software for applications such as enterprise performance monitoring. These software makers are offering an option for the customer's server to be linked to the software maker's so that the software maker can quickly analyze problems found on the customer's side. Some software makers have even packaged this option as default on installation. Although the potential for rapid troubleshooting was lucrative, many business customers were concerned about an external source having access to their data. The involvement of the CPO on the software maker's side in such a marketing plan may not only have advised the marketing and the research and development departments on the external perception but may also have helped develop a privacy policy targeted to potential customers of the option, assuring them that their data would not be used by the software maker and that preventative measures would be taken to ensure the safety of the data. In addition, the business customers' CPO may need to be involved to verify that new software installations comply with the privacy policy.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution