You’ll have to excuse me if these opening remarks aren’t up to the usual standard—whatever that may be. My Ottawa Senators are playing the Boston Bruins tonight (it's Thursday evening) and the game has huge playoff implications. I’m going through my usual superstitions as I’m writing this in the hopes that my karma will somehow affect the outcome in a positive way. Needless to say, I’m distracted.

Is March 31 the year-end for your organization? It’s not here at my law firm, but for many of our clients, the end of March means crunch time—in the biggest way. As a result, we are up to our eyeballs trying to complete PIAs, privacy audits, privacy assessments and, well, whatever other type of privacy project there is. While the busy-ness means less down time, it does expose me to various interesting privacy challenges that keep the juices flowing as we try to find solutions to new and evolving issues. It may sound a little nerdy to say, but it really is great work, and I’m glad I chose to work in the privacy industry way back when—gosh, going on 20 years now! 

Another distraction for me this upcoming weekend relates to the privacy class I’m teaching to a group of teens. Monday’s class will be their last class with me, and they have to reenact a meeting between a group of complainants, representatives of a big social networking site and a group of investigators at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC). They each take on a particular angle in this role play, which I hope helps them learn this privacy stuff in general but also from all the varying and important perspectives in this kind of dynamic. I’m anxious to see what they come up with.  If it’s good, I may write about it next week. 

Until then, have a great weekend, and don’t forget to catch up on the privacy news from the past week. Lots of notable stories, but what stood out for me was the OPC report relating to Health Canada’s 2013 privacy breach where they disclosed personal information relating to those in the Marihuana Medical Access Program.