MANAGEMENT UPDATE.

THE LATEST ABOUT CHIEF PRIVACY OFFICERS

According to the recently released National Association of State CIO’s chief privacy office (CPO) survey “Much has changed in the two years since the last state chief privacy officer (CPO) survey in 2022—and the state of the world has drastically changed from the time of our first survey in 2019!

The information in this important report, based on responses from 17 survey respondents, certainly bears that out.

Some highlights:

“The federal government has not passed a comprehensive privacy bill which has motivated states to pass their own legislation (13 at the time of this publication). A slew of additional states (is) considering bills this year.”
“At the date of this publication 25 states have a chief privacy officer or someone tasked with privacy at the enterprise level (though not all positions were filled).”
“In 2024, 25 percent of state CPOs reported to the CIO, versus 29 percent in 2022 and 42 percent in 2019.”
“We asked CPOs if there is an established privacy program in their state. Twenty-four percent said yes, 41 percent said they are in the process of developing it and 35 percent said no. Oddly these numbers are slightly worse than they were two years ago when 29 percent of respondents said they had an established privacy program.”
“Given the explosion of accessibility of artificial intelligence tools over the last year, we asked state chief privacy officers if they have been involved in setting policies related to artificial intelligence for their state. A resounding 77 percent said that they are while only 23 percent said that they are not.”
“Along with the increased interest in AI comes more questions around privacy as it relates to technology procurement and acquisition. A full 69 percent of respondents said that they are involved in the approval process for technology-related procurements and contracts (compared to 59 percent in 2022) and 25 percent said that they are sometimes or in certain situations. This growth likely shows the increasing importance of considering privacy in the procurement process.”