InformationWeek's John Soat knows where to call when it comes to finding experts to comment on the best ways for companies to approach privacy.

The IAPP Board President and two board members were among the expert privacy sources Soat tapped for his Nov. 20 cover story, "Privacy: The Problem That Won't Go Away."

Soat wrote, "Smart companies don't just stay on top of privacy legislation, they also seek to influence it." Enter IAPP Board President Kirk M. Herath, CIPP/G, Chief Privacy Officer, Associate General Counsel, Nationwide Insurance Companies.

Noting that Herath served as an industry lobbyist for several years in the 1990s, Soat added that Herath helped to draft HIPAA and regularly stays in touch with the company's lobbyists for briefings on pending legislation.

"Dealing with federal and state regs is a constant juggling act," Herath told InformationWeek.

Board member Harriet Pearson, CIPP/G, IBM's Vice President Corporate Affairs, Chief Privacy Officer, was a resource for Soat's section on the relationship between privacy and technology, part of which focused on RFID.

"Even if you think the (RFID) technology poses little privacy risk, consumer concerns demand that you make privacy an integral part of your RFID strategy from the start," Pearson said.
Soat then turned to IAPP Board member David Hoffman, CIPP, Group Counsel and Director of Privacy & Security, Intel Corp., on the issue of global privacy demands.

Hoffman, Soat noted, went to Munich, Germany, two years ago to establish policies and procedures to tackle the "hugely variant" European privacy regulations. "In the U.K. and the Czech Republic, they want you to tell them how you're processing customer data," Hoffman told InformationWeek. "In Spain and France, they'd like you to register each individual application, to provide details about each individual database."