It’s now been a few months since we marked the annual January Data Privacy week celebration. Many privacy and digital governance leaders shared thoughtful posts about the importance of their roles, of the importance of customer trust, and about the demands of strategic governance amongst regulatory complexity. And yet I’ve been stuck for several weeks wondering what exactly we are celebrating. What does privacy (aka digital governance) mean for professionals and executives in 2026?
Leading accountable and strategic digital governance is under constraint, perhaps retreating into the mist of compliance overwhelm and deregulation. Yet privacy officers (or, AI Governance, or Digital Risk Officers), remain a crucial vanguard. These are the watchguards of what’s appropriate uses of peoples’ data, and of common-sense, ethical, data-centric business practices. Trust and responsible use of data doesn’t happen by accident, it’s built through intentional standards, actions and organization-wide commitment to measurable accountable practices.
The work of digital governance and trustworthy data practices has never been more challenging and more foundational. AI increasingly dominates our work and daily lives, fully intertwined with data privacy, data governance and data security. The most significant impacts for many in digital governance arise from the policy actions by the U.S. Federal Government, at home and abroad. Certainly, there are incremental shifts in requirements and expectations, centered around the U.S. State’s expanding privacy laws (20 and counting), enforcement and class actions, new AI regulations, and the postponement of EU AI Guidelines. Privacy, AI and Cybersecurity requirements will only continue to simultaneously diverge and converge, especially on the international stage.
Meanwhile, surveillance systems sprout like the daffodils in spring, scanning faces and license plates, tracking neighborhood cell phone activity, while also acquiring data about people from private entities or lax public agencies. Is widespread surveillance the de facto mode of experience we citizens must expect and tolerate?
An ever-expanding and pervasive, comprehensive, domestic surveillance apparatus, populated by metal giraffe-necked blue-eyed cameras, cell phone data mining and harvesting software, and data sourced from public fora, mobile, social and multimedia scanning and sentiment analysis, then fueled, shared and sold like a summer flea market by government and commercial collaboration. What’s a befuddled citizen to do? What can a digital governance leader really do to protect its customers’ interests while enabling AI competitive advantage.
The seemingly unchecked and aggressive efforts by government and commercial interests to collect more sensitive and private information about Americans movements, activities, passing fancies, health, and political views by government agencies is deeply concerning. The reports of improper access and use of sensitive data by U.S. government contractors raises fundamental questions about data misuse, the legal protections for citizens, and for accountability and trust in government systems. The impact expands beyond Americans, to our allies and neighbors.
As long as there is a market for both use (or misuse) of observational data (i.e. surveillance) — whether the data is desired by law enforcement, government agencies or commercial entities, ever-emerging products will be available and exploited. The onus has fallen on us as citizens to loudly object and for our local, regional and/or state governments to act definitively and responsively to citizen concerns. Surveillance is surveillance regardless of which political party is in power locally or nationally.
In this time and this place, what are the day-to-day implications for the Privacy (Digital Governance) Officer to reassure executives and the board, to lead their teams, and to retain trust and operational resilience? The call for responsible and ethical data practices has never been louder and more necessary, but who beyond the corporate privacy officer (or security officer) hear that call every morning when they start their day. Privacy Officers and responsible Digital Governance leaders remain some of our most important guardians of privacy, data about people, as consumers, employees, citizens.
Not so long ago in my past LinkedIn Data Privacy Day feed was a flood of visionary and strategic thinking or showcases of operational excellence in responsible, ethical data use. Today, that dialog is reduced to a meandering stream, drowned out by AI solutions in search of problems. Yet there are still leaders in this space promoting and reinforcing ethical data practices that are equally classic and contemporary. The importance of committing to a forward-looking privacy vision grounded in business values, that privacy is a strategic, values-driven, and human-centered practice. That it should be built around eight foundational fair information principles, the importance of that commitment should be demonstrated in practice through concrete examples of responsible innovation and the trust-retaining benefit from more precise, intentional framing when communicating with internal and external stakeholders.
These are our watchguards. Along with regulatory and policy solutions, the ongoing mission of the Privacy Officer (or Digital Governance or AI Governance Officer) is a crucial human guardian of data privacy and digital responsibility and ethical anti-surveillance data practices, both in business and in government entities. Human guardians of transparency and accountability aren't selective choices in our digital world – they're essential to us all, and worth celebrating.