Intro: 00:01

Are you ready to know what you don't know about Privacy Pros, then you're in the right place.

Intro: 00:06

Welcome to the Privacy Pros Academy podcast by Kazient Privacy Experts. The podcast to launch progress and excel your career as a Privacy Pro.

Intro: 00:17

Hear about the latest news and developments in the world of privacy

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Discover fascinating insights from leading global privacy

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Professionals and hear real stories and top tips from the people who've been where you want to get to.

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We've trained people in over 137 countries and counting.

Intro: 00:40

So whether you're thinking about starting a career in data privacy or you are an experienced professional, this is the podcast for you.

Jamilla: 00:57

Hi everyone and welcome to the Privacy Pros Academy podcast. My name is Jamilla, and I'm a data privacy analyst at Kazient Privacy Experts. I'm primarily responsible for conducting research on current and upcoming legislation as well as any key developments and decisions by supervisory authorities. With me today is my co-host is Jamal Ahmed who is a Fellow of Information Privacy and CEO at Kazient Privacy Experts. He is an established and comprehensively qualified privacy professional with a demonstrable track record solving enterprise-wide, data privacy and data security challenges for SMEs to complex global organizations. Jamal is a Certified Information Privacy Manager, Certified Information Privacy Professional, Certified EU GDPR practitioner, Master NLP practitioner, Prince II Practitioner and he holds a Bachelor of Arts in business with Law. He is a revered global privacy thought leader, world class trainer, and published author for publications such as Thomson Reuters, The Independent, Euro News, as well as numerous industry publications. He makes regular appearances on the media, on television, radio and in print, and has been dubbed the King of GDPR by the BBC. To date, he has provided privacy and GDPR compliance solutions to organizations across six continents and in over 30 jurisdictions, helping to safeguard the personal data of over a billion data subjects worldwide. Welcome, Jamal.

Jamal: 01:56

Hi, Jamilla. How are you today?

Jamilla: 01:58

I'm all right, thank you. How are you?

Jamal: 02:00

I'm fantastic. I'm so happy. I'm sure the listeners can hear how much I'm smiling. It's because we have such an amazing and inspiring guest on our podcast today, and I'm really delighted that she was able to make the time to join us. So why don't you go ahead and tell us who that is?

Jamilla: 02:16

I'm excited too. So our guest today is Emerald de Leeuw. She is a globally recognized Privacy and Data ethics expert as well as an award-winning entrepreneur, advisory board member and lecturer.

oung Innovator of the Year in: 2017

Jamilla: 03:23

Welcome, Emerald. Thank you for joining us.

Emerald: 03:25

Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Jamilla: 03:28

We're excited to have you too. And as we always do on the podcast, we'll start off with an icebreaker question. So today's one is, do you have any hidden talent?

Emerald: 03:37

Dude, this always surprises people. But before I even ever went to law school, I used to write for Photoshop Creative magazine, which was actually a UK publication. They were based in Bournemouth. And I'm not sure if you heard of, like, advanced Photoshop magazine, photoshop Creative magazine. But back in the day, this is kind of where all the digital artists would go. And I ended up being a tutorial writer for them because I was quite good at Digital Painting. Now, those skills have calcified since then because I just don't have time and it's really bad and I should do more of it. And every year I commit to doing more, privacy law gets introduced, and that's the end of that.

Jamal: 04:16

I can imagine you coming up with some pretty amazing graphics, and memes for breaking down privacy laws and cases and commenting on what's happening around the world.

Emerald: 04:24

I wish that's where my flare was. I mainly did fantasy art, so like elves and pixies and mermaids, and also quite a lot of animals, like cute, fluffy baby tigers and wolves and things like that. But it's on my website, Emeralddeleeuw,.com which is just a mishmash of anything that I feel I need to talk about on the Internet, not always privacy. And then there's a random art gallery on the site.

Jamilla: 04:52

We will link that below. I'm sure the listeners will love to check that out. That sounds really cool. So did you do that before your masters? Did you say before university?

Emerald: 05:01

ometimes would paint, to like: 05:00

Jamal: 06:00

Talk to us about how you ended up in privacy and what do you love most about working in privacy?

Emerald: 06:05

nd then I moved to Ireland in: 2012

Jamilla: 11:17

Did you enjoy that experience of founding your own company?

Emerald: 11:19

ee years or so were terrible.: 2018

Jamal: 15:02

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I can certainly relate having a number of businesses before I really focused on data privacy with Kazient. And I think the most valuable thing that I take away from my experience earlier on is when I first started and got into business, I learned so much more about myself than I ever knew. And for me, that was the most valuable thing to take away from that. All of the things I've discovered for myself, learning about me and learning how to communicate, how to negotiate, how to persuade, how to influence, how to go about things and not just say things as they are, how to have a little bit of tact. And I'm still learning and we're still learning every day. But I think being an entrepreneur is definitely not for everyone. There are the ups and downs. So this is the thing when I was speaking to Tom on a previous podcast, he's also a privacy consultant from Ireland and he was saying he thinks a lot of us are consultants in this game because we like the adrenaline rush from when we close a deal or when we get a yes. And that yes and those highs are worth all the lows that we go through.

Emerald: 16:01

I totally hear you. And getting the yes is unbelievable and particularly when you're pitching someone and in the beginning, it's really hard to figure out what you charge for something, things like that so in the beginning you're just kind of like going, okay, this sounds about right. And then when people say yes, it's like, oh my God, that's amazing. Someone is paying me to do this. And for me, I think that was a very hard thing to shake. I'm still working on that is where I always think that someone's going to find out that I don't actually know everything about privacy all the time and I often have to read up on things. Someone is going to stand up and go, she has no idea what you're talking about. Send her away. And this imposter syndrome is just forever.

Jamilla: 16:45

I think we were speaking to Odia on a previous podcast and I think we were talking about women and how perhaps we think we’re more prone to things like imposter syndrome and things like that. Do you think it's not necessarily a mindset, but something that we've possibly been told we're not good enough and that imposter syndrome maybe rears more in women?

Emerald: 17:03

I've also heard that, but it could be also something else. Maybe it's just that women are more open about feeling it. That could be a thing. I certainly think that women get underestimated more often. I can only speak from my own experience, but this has definitely happened to me. I've definitely had people try and throw me under the bus as part of a panel and it makes you look bad when you do it. I think people forget that people in the audience tend to be smart people. They see you, we see you. I definitely think that women talk about it more and I think that if you're applying for a job, if a man has two out of ten skills, he'll apply for it. If a woman is missing one, she won't apply. That sort of thing. Maybe that's part of it. I think generally society is harsher on women. Being a woman on the internet is a hard thing.

Jamilla: 17:53

And that kind of links into the Ted Talk that you gave, what you were talking about, amongst other things, body dysmorphia, online privacy. Could you tell us a little bit about the Ted Talk?

Emerald: 18:03

Absolutely, yeah. So I was trying to say something useful in particular, I guess young women, because I do think that we have a tougher time on the internet, particularly now with face tune and filters and all of that, and I kind of shared with the audience that had a pretty severe eating disorder. I almost died in my early twenty’s. I ended up in the intensive care unit and that's a real shock to the system. And that was years ago now, right? Like we discussed my age, so back then we didn't have Instagram. And this whole constant influx of perfect people with perfect bodies that may or may not be real perfect faces. All of this promotion that you need surgery in order to be accepted in society. And I think I was kind of before actually delivering that talk, I was kind of musing going, how hard would it have been for me to actually get over like, it's a pretty severe psychological disorder. You don't see yourself the way you are. If I was constantly bombarded with that? Because I think it's really difficult to get away from it. Right. You can't really not have a phone. Definitely. Now, in times of COVID like, how are you going to have a social life if you're a young person and you're not on TikTok and Instagram? And I guess those are the only two that are still somewhat acceptable to Gen Z. Facebook not used as much as I might have used it back in the day. But yeah. I think that was kind of one of the things I discussed and I was kind of talking about. Once you start looking at certain content. The algorithm gets to know you and gives you more of that content. Like, these platforms also kind of know who you are, so we'll already be targeting you with things that might not always be the best for you, depending on your circumstances. I can only speak for myself, but I think if being young woman back then who definitely had problems with food, if I kept seeing fake images of very, very perfect, thin people all the time, I might have found it more difficult to get well. And then I kind of talked about in the Ted Talk, algorithms will just target you and continue to show you stuff so you buy it. So that could be anything can also be a diet pill or plastic surgery or other things like that that might not be in your best interest.

Jamilla: 20:26

Definitely agree with you guys. I think it's definitely worse for young people. I'm 27, and so when I was kind of growing up, Facebook was the big thing, which is not cool anymore, as I've been told. But I've got two younger sisters, one is 13 and one is eleven, and they're already on Instagram. They're already seeing things. And I volunteer at a youth club and the girls and the boys, they both have really unrealistic expectations because they're seeing so much on the Internet, and it's like, that's not what people look like in real life. No one looks like that. But I found the Ted Talk really interesting. One thing that you mentioned in the Ted Talk, you asked the audience, why do we not demand that these technologies serve humanity rather than undermine it? Do you think as times are getting, I guess, more socially aware, socially conscious, do you think that this is going to get more feasible?

Emerald: 21:17

I'm not sure if it's going to get more feasible. I think it's going to become more and more important, though. I think we've seen questions being raised at government level, you know, like, what has the impact of targeting, in particular been on certain things like elections. I think it's actually becoming less feasible as more data gets collected if there aren't the right controls in place. And I also think, you know, there's new companies popping up all the time that might not be under as much scrutiny as some more well known companies, and some of the damage can then already be done. We know of famous stories like Cambridge Analytica. I don't think anyone ever heard of them, really, unless you were really into that scene. Things went horribly wrong, but we found out after the fact. So I think the awareness around privacy and the damages is definitely more top of mind now. Like, it's truly mainstream, right? Like, we have Netflix documentaries now and people know. But I also think we still face a privacy paradox, where people know privacy is important and they say they care about privacy, but their behaviour does not always reflect that.

Jamal: 22:25

Absolutely. But we see companies that are quite large and they're advertising how much they care about your privacy. That's what they're using for you to buy into their brands, buy into their services. But then when you look into the dark patterns they are using and how they're using some of these algorithms, it's anything but caring about your privacy. And you mentioned quite a few things about algorithms and dark patterns and how people can get stuck in holes. There's a lot of stuff I came across in the past with challenges of people who are pregnant and then on the pregnancy apps and how they're getting targeted, and some women who are unfortunate enough to suffer miscarriages, and how it all really started affecting that. And the algorithm is a really challenging one. Say someone's a bit depressed or sad or they have some kind of mental health disorder and they're not in a positive place, and they might search for a sad quote. The problem is, the algorithm is now going to target them with more depressing stuff, and it's going to take this person further down this black hole until eventually somebody does the unthinkable. I was really pleased when you were sharing your story on Ted Talk that you actually managed to identify there was a problem, there was something about it, and now you've recovered, and you've had such an amazing journey since then. So I'm super proud of your achievements. I'm so happy for you. Everyone that's listening to this podcast, especially all our female audience, across the 53 countries can really look to you for inspiration and see how it's not realistic to look like the people that you see on Instagram all the time. You don't have to look like that. Stop thinking about that and go and focus on your career and go and focus on being great and just look at what Emerald’s done in a few years. There is nothing stopping you from doing just as much, if not more. Well, I know you've got a very strong track record there, but at least people can look up to you and say, hey, look, that's some inspiration there. We're going to plug in your website and we're going to plug in your YouTube Ted Talks and everything. So for anyone who wants to know a little bit more about Emerald and find out more about the story and all the amazing stuff she's been doing, make sure you click on the links and make sure you connect with Emerald on LinkedIn as well.

Emerald: 24:26

cause, you know, in the early: 2000

Jamal: 25:08

That the time when they had this pen test, this pencil test, and it had to be as thin as the length of a pen or something.

Emerald: 25:13

I don't even know about that one, but I remember there was a quote like, nothing tastes as good as thin feels. And all of this nonsense, loads of things taste way better than thin feels. I've experienced all the things thin feels and I think back then, while it's not related to a filter, not everything is as it seems, right? So I'm 100% fully recovered and I have been for quite a few years now. But I think, don't believe everything you see. Most things are not real. And I also think that whoever is listening, right, it's up to yourself to decide what you're going to do. So are you going to get sucked in to the end of the scroll or are you going to double down and do something that is actually serving you?

Jamilla: 25:59

o show you what they're doing: 02:00

Emerald: 26:14

I was so scared to share my story. So scared because I shared my story when things were going very well in my career. Very well. So it was always going to be a risk. I've only received great response. Like, even Logitech’s CEO ended up watching it and sharing it with his entire leadership team. He had not met me. He was like, who is this Emerald person?

Emerald: 26:37

You need to go watch her Ted Talk and one of the other leaders in the company who came up to me and told me this story because she was in that meeting, I just found it so nice to see that you can share something, because eating disorders oh, my God, the stigma around it and the judgment, it's not a pretty place. Even now, I know that people are becoming more accepting of talking about their eating problems, but still, the judgment is super hard because people think, oh, you have an eating disorder because you want to be thin. No. You probably have lost control of certain parts of your life, and you're now controlling what you eat. That's what it's about. And I think people judge people really harshly. You even hear people getting called anorexic if they look thin. People could be thin for all sorts of reasons. They could be sick or they've been under a lot of stress or things like that. So I think the one thing I'm trying to do is break the stigma, and I think the more people who are doing okay or have recovered actually come out and say, hey, I actually had a problem, I worked through it. You can come out the other side, particularly now with life being quite hard as a person online and just seeing all these perfect people all the time, I think the more of that we do I doubt this sounds super corny, but it does kind of start with you.

Jamilla: 27:55

I completely agree. In terms of the mental health, I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and I wrote a chapter in a book about my experiences with it as a Muslim woman. And I was so nervous putting that out there because I was like, well, future employers are going to see that. People who I might be friends with, people who I might be in a relationship with, they're all going to see that I was so nervous. But then when I got feedback and people telling me, wow, you gave me the strength to go and seek help because I know that I'm not the only one suffering, that was kind of a big yes in the same way, I guess, you felt putting your story out there, and you've had positive comments.

Jamal: 28:32

Yeah.

Emerald: 28:33

And I'm sure loads of people also judge me really harshly. But then you can't please everyone, right?

Jamal: 28:37

That's right, you can't. But what you've both touched on there, people can resonate with it. When you make yourself very vulnerable and you open up and you tell everyone how it is, people only see all of your successes, and they only see what you choose to put out on social media. And when we have our personal brands and I was thinking from a business point of view, we only put out the highlights, the great stuff, and nobody actually sees what's happening behind the scenes. A few years ago, I suffered some bereavement. I suffered, I lost three children. It was very scary for me to openly talk about that and post about that on LinkedIn and especially what's known as a business platform. But when I did, a lot of people find it quite inspiring, just like Emerald, your stories are inspiring, Jamilla just like your chapters were inspiring. And I think people like that human side of things, because when people are watching from a distance and they just see your achievements, they think, oh, this guy's got it all of this woman's got it all. Or look at Emerald she's an overachiever. But they don't see all of the hard stuff and the resilience it takes to really get through that. And I think once you're on the right path, once you've overcome the worst of it and you're on the path to seeing the light and recovering and you share that story, it can actually be quite liberating as well.

Emerald: 29:41

Totally agree with you on the liberation part for me, because once I shared it, I felt I was truly past it because I felt it was no longer me. That might sound a bit strange if you've not gone through something like that, but I don't identify with that person who had all of these problems anymore. I feel like I'm a new person now. I'm an evolved individual. And of course, there's always so much more room for growth and learning and making mistakes and doing all the things. But I think once you put it out into the world, first of all, there's no going back, which there's something really interesting about that and liberating, like you said, but also there is a self-acceptance where you just go, right, this actually happened to me, and it's okay, I'm still here.

Jamal: 30:30

Thank you for sharing this. This podcast is very deep today. It's going in a completely different direction. I imagine we're talking about the things that matter most, and I'm sure everyone that's listening is going to really benefit and value and will resonate with what we're discussing in their own ways. You've had all of these great successes and you've had all of these challenges being in a very bad situation where you almost died. What is it that drives you to excel and be as great as you are? And how do you deal with setbacks?

Emerald: 31:00

Thank you. To be honest, success is just like a fleeting thing, right? Like, it's something that's more perceived by others rather than at least perceived by me. I think that's part of it. And yeah, I've done a lot of things, but I've also just been given a lot of opportunities. Some of it was being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it was just me asking people questions and reaching out to people and things like that. I think one of the most important strategies I have is when I have a bad day, I force myself to only let it be a bad day, something terrible happens. Let's say you lose a big deal or you get rejected for something. I allow myself 24 hours to wallow in self-pity because you do need a little bit of wallowing. Sometimes it just needs to happen. You need to feel sorry for yourself, pour yourself a cup of tea, crawl into a blanket, but then the next day, that needs to be done. So there is some self-discipline in that, and I'm self-disciplined to the extreme, which is why I probably ended up with such a bad case of anorexia. But I think just focusing on the next thing, I actually want to get less good at this because I think I have a habit of achieving something and then being, okay, that's done. Now, what's next?

Jamal: 32:15

Next one, yes, I can relate.

Emerald: 32:15

Instead of being well, that was really great. I should probably enjoy this moment, smell the roses and just maybe take it easy for a little while. But that's not in my nature, and I think that's okay too. I don't think it's that healthy to always as long as you're managing your health and making sure you're sleeping well, eating well, maybe we don't even talk enough about the importance of sleep and nutrition and fitness, which I am very passionate about now, particularly because I've seen what bad nutrition, loss of fitness and all of that looks like. I'm now very precious about making sure that I'm doing the right things to make sure that I can perform at a high level. Because let's be honest, being a privacy professional these days also is not for the faint hearted. It's hard work, and I'm sure everybody who is listening knows this. I actually really enjoy my job, but I think that working in privacy is pretty intense. So you need to be in good shape to ensure that you're energized.

Jamal: 33:17

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you mentioned those things because it's something that I've actually been focusing on for the last three weeks now. This is week three of me, my new focus and commitment to health. And yes, you're right, privacy is very intensive. Running a business can be very intensive. I'm a little bit like you Emerald, I'm always focusing on the next one. So for me, it's like, okay, this is the goal. We've done it, exit. And next, what's the next one? Sometimes the teams are like, hang on a minute, let's just stop and celebrate this and let us be for a bit. It's not the next one straight away. So I completely get that. But one thing I realized is sleep is so important. And all this time I thought, like, if I work a little bit harder, if I just sleep for maybe 4 hours, 5 hours, that's nothing. I can get up and I'm like Superman, but it catches up with you. And recently I had to go and see the doctor and they was like, well, if you carry on like this, you're going to have a stroke or heart attack. And I was like, wow, I can't believe it took me to hear that, to decide I want to make some changes. And so three weeks ago, when I signed up to the gym and started thinking about my nutrition and sleep and water, and I'm consciously trying to make sure that I make less time for work and more time for the other stuff in life that matters as well. Because like you said, those things are super important. And now when I'm speaking to my mentees, even then I'm saying, hey, guys, how's it going? Have you made enough time to rest? Have you made enough time to eat properly? Don't just keep ordering takeaways. And it's become a new focus. And the thing is, I'm actually really enjoying my new lifestyle of trying to eat better, trying to drink more water, sleeping better, and I feel so much better. I feel like actually, I'm making sharper decisions. I'm sharper, I'm fitter, I'm actually getting more out of the time that I'm working than previously when I was working a lot harder, but not achieving as much and not getting as much done. So sleep, nutrition, having that healthy mind and just switching off and going and sitting in a spa or whatever, I think all of those things are really important and actually it's going to make your performance better, not worse. That's what I've found so far in the last three weeks.

Emerald: 35:12

That's a great story. I think you're doing absolutely the right thing and I think you're completely on the ball. That's also my experience. I think that no one is 100% productive for their entire work day all the time. And sometimes you have off days and sometimes you have amazing days because you've got like the best sleep of your life. You're in flow and things are just going, and then some days nothing happens because your brain is broken. We all have those days too. For me, what got me out of the eating disorder was, first of all, just starting to eat, which was really scary, but also balancing that with exercise, because one of the things that happens to bodies if they go without nutrition for a long time is you can lose bone density and things like that. So weightlifting and stuff becomes really important. So I've been weightlifting now probably for over ten years and still do it. I have a home gym set up. It's not much, but does the job. I do quite a lot of high intensity interval training now as well, which I didn't do for many years because I kind of cut out cardio because I figured I need to do everything to ensure I have the best recovery possible. If you've had an eating disorder, the cardio can be a trap, right? Because you shouldn't be working off what you're actually eating in order to put on the weight. So for me, I kind of banned that, but because I was fully recovered, I really took that up again. So I do a lot. There's a program. It's called Les Mills on demand. I'm not sure if you've heard of that. I am obsessed with body attack and body combat. I love it so much and I do it all the time. And it's one of those sessions like, if I'm not like in a pile of sweat on the floor, it didn't happen. I think I’m very type A across the board. I think that's probably clear from this whole conversation, but I just really enjoy it and I think it's really good for your stress levels and will bring down the blood pressure. So you should look into that if you haven't already.

Jamal: 36:57

Yeah, I signed up to something with my club it’s called Blaze, and it's like HIT the workout training. So you've got three different stations. You've got the treadmill for the cardio stuff, you got to do nine minutes. So you do three minute bursts, and then you've got the section in the middle with the free weights, and you do that, and then you've got the combat zone. So throughout the nine minutes, you do three minutes on station one, three minutes on station two, three minutes on station three, and you start again. And by the end, you are a bucket of sweat. You're ready to go and have a deep sleep. But then what I found that's really amazing is they've got these ice pool downstairs. So you go and you jump straight into that. And the first time I jumped in, I remember jumping straight back out again. But now I can go in and focus on my breathing and I can stay up to about three minutes earlier this morning. So it's actually working really well. And the other thing I like doing is I take a class called Spirit. It's a little bit like a hybrid of yoga and Pilates. And because we're sitting on our desk all the time, it can lead to lower back complaints. And especially when you put on a little bit of weight around your belly like I have, and you need lose it, it's definitely not a good thing. So I'm finding that these stretching and these balancing is actually really helping me and really helping to not just from a fitness point of view, but when it comes to business decision, it's actually helping me take a step back and make better and more balanced decisions as well. So I'm actually very positively surprised how all of these changes, all of this stuff that I've never made time for because I'm so obsessed with working all the time, how that's actually been denying myself of being able to perform at the level I can. And I think as time goes by, it's only going to get better. And I was thinking on my way back earlier this afternoon, I can't believe this, but I'm actually someone who enjoys going to the gym now and I have to come every single day. And I was like, wow, I never thought I'd hear myself say that.

Emerald: 38:39

Yeah, and it's surprising. It's so good for your mental health as well. Right. Like, I know that if I'm stressed or if I really don't want to work out, I try to make myself, like, I say, say, 20 minutes, right?

20 minutes. And I always feel better. There hasn't been a day that I've done a workout and that I didn't want to do that I felt worse afterwards, it has never happened. And let me demonstrate something. And I didn't put this on for the interview because I don't want to be slightly out of breath during an interview. But I am actually on treadmill desk, so normally when I'm on meetings wow. This is a standing desk with a treadmill because I am on zoom a lot and I'm really cool with that. I don't mind it, I love talking to people. But I did have back problems from sitting down too much, so I got a treadmill for under my desk.

Jamal: 39:32

Wow.

Jamilla: 39:33

I kind of want one now.

Emerald: 39:35

Yeah, they're great. They're a bit of an investment, but I bought mine, I think it was December, and I use it every single day that I'm working. I highly rate them.

Jamilla: 39:45

Jamal, if I get one, can I claim it on expenses?

Jamal: 39:48

We'll talk about that separately. Anyway, there's this book I want to introduce everyone to, changing the subject Jamilla, it’s Matthew Walker, and it's about why we sleep. And I can't stress to you how important this book is and how it really shifted my perception on why I need to get enough sleep and why we must sleep. So I recommend this and, you know, I'll probably put a link into the podcast for everyone. Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker it’s an international best seller. If you're in privacy and you're working as hard as any of us that I know what we do in privacy, then please make sure that at least the minimum you do is get at least 7 hours sleep. And that's so important idea.

Emerald: 40:25

I think, personally, for me, 7 hours is not enough. I'm quite religious about my sleep and I get very grumpy if I don't get to go to bed when I want to go to bed. I take it very seriously. And not because of the book, which I've also read. I think I just feel like rubbish if I'm under slept.

Jamal: 40:44

How many hours of sleep is ideal for you?

Emerald: 40:45

About eight because particularly if I've exercised, if I've exercised intensely, my body needs to recover from that, right. Particularly muscle recovery. If you've been weightlifting, I just need sleep. And I also don't work as an insane person anymore. Like, I used to be one of these seven days a week sort of people when I had my own company and work all the time and be sending out emails on a Sunday morning because I knew the top of inbox on the Monday when these people get back into work and all the other tricks of the book, genuinely don't do it anymore. And my work is way better for it. Like, when I'm at work, I'm in great form, I get way more done, my brain is more organized, like, sleep is so important. I second that 100%.

Jamilla: 41:31

I third it. I love sleep. If I could get 11 hours a night, I would. That's impossible, unfortunately. So we've covered a lot. We've covered sleep, nutrition, fitness. Let's get back onto GDPR and data privacy this week. We've seen that the Culture Secretary in the UK is wanting to move the UK away from GDPR. Do you think that will happen?

Jamal: 41:58

Well, let me come in there a little bit before we hear from what Emerald has to say, being in the UK. So, look, I read the articles in the Broadsheets and it's the Culture Secretary, he's talking about cookies. Cookies are the e-privacy directive, we’re talking about PECR not GDPR right. And I think this is just a political statement he's making, because, look, Brexit happened, businesses are suffering. No one's seen any benefits from Brexit, so what can we do? Oh, hey, we've Brexited and we're going to come up with our own data protection laws and it's going to make this much better for everyone. I think it's just political rhetoric. I don't think there's anything really behind it. And if there was going to be anything behind it, we've seen Brussels today announced that, hey, if you go away too much, we're going to stop sharing information with you guys. So I’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, but the war of words has already begun. Emerald, what's your take on it?

Emerald: 42:44

I hope not. I actually think the GDPR is a very well written piece of legislation and I think it has done very good things. I know that there's, obviously I've heard all of the criticism and it's cumbersome for small businesses on it. That is actually true it’s hard to deny that. But I do think in terms of the individuals who are impacted by privacy and data protection laws, I think that GDPR was actually a pretty good move for people. I often think that's a really helpful argument, right? Like, I'm just very conscious of the goal of this podcast and I feel terribly guilty about waffling about mental health problems for a very, very long time. So to say something somewhat helpful is everyone is a person first and everyone has a family and you can make privacy very personal very quickly in order to get your point across. My take is, I hope not, but I really don't know enough about UK politics to weigh in with something super sensible here, so I'll leave it at that.

Jamilla: 43:43

That's interesting. And I was reading the articles, it said he wants to allow data to be treated like oil as a model.

Emerald: 43:50

rgument. Isn't that like very: 2001

Jamilla: 43:57

22 hours ago this was reported?

Emerald: 43:59

I mean, that argument, that used to be a thing, right, when everyone was like, collect all the data and I think we now know that more is not always more.

Jamal: 44:08

Well, I mean, this is the challenge with some of the leaders we have in some of the government departments and sitting in the House of Parliament with the UK. This is people who are running the country. So we hope we see positive change.

Jamilla: 44:21

We hope so. Emerald so you've just been accepted onto the Stanford Lead program. Can you tell us a bit more about that and why you think it's important to continuously seek new education, new certifications?

Emerald: 44:35

It's six years since I completed my last actual degree and I like to keep learning and I think I have a very different role now than I used to have. Right. So I only became the head of privacy at Logitech in January this year. That's quite recent for me. And I've never been in a global leadership in a company the size of Logitech before, so I really want to do a good job. So I'm trying to learn more about how businesses are run and particularly like public companies. It's really important for me to understand my colleagues and understand the other leaders in the business, so I can understand what they're thinking and where they're going and that I can have an intelligent conversation with them that isn't just focused. You can't really go into the meeting just with your own this is what I want kind of attitude. You need to listen to people and then figure out how you can help them achieve their goals while also ensuring that privacy of the individual is respected and that you comply with the law. So, for me, it was very much, how do I plug the gaps in my knowledge. And it seemed like a sensible next step to do something that was executive education, and then the second part of it was, it's Stanford. So I was like, I would love to go to Stanford and I have never envisioned myself to be able to do something like this. So when I learned about the program and the type of profile that they were looking for, I said, you know what, maybe this is the thing, because it's something that I can do while doing my job, as opposed to a lot of other more intense educational programs. So that was the main driver for this particular one for me. But I think in general, right, like, if you're not learning, you're standing still. And generally speaking, and I know my bio calls me an expert, but that was written a while ago. The Stanford addition is kind of bolted on at the end. But I think the moment you are very focused on how much of an expert you are, you're not focusing on what you still need to learn. And I really try to focus on, okay, what do I not know?

Jamilla: 46:49

Yes.

Emerald: 46:50

That I should probably know. So I think that everyone benefits from that, right? To make sure that you're continuously kind of working on yourself within reason. I don't subscribe to huscle culture. I think that was clear from our sleep conversation there earlier. But I think that it's important to give yourself something to work on outside of your day job. I like to have something else. I know that might seem strange, but I love my job and I really enjoy what I do, but I also really enjoy having my own personal development goals outside of my career and I think it's a healthy thing to have.

Jamal: 47:25

I think what you said really resonates with the message we try to deliver through Privacy Pros Academy. You should always be seeking to constantly improve and progress. There's one thing having a day job, and yes, you can achieve a certain certification, but you're just only touching or seeing the people of the iceberg. There's so much more that you don't even know, that you don't know about. And it's only when you start looking, you discover there's this whole new world out there. And it's important to make sure that you have that sense of achievement and that sense of fulfilment. For me, anyway, I feel like if I haven't achieved something or if I can't say I'm fulfilled, then I have to go and find something to work towards, to challenge me, to learn, to grow, to develop, so that I can create more value. And actually I can be more at peace with myself knowing that I am not standing in one place, staying stagnant. And I think some of the challenges we see sometimes with a lot of people is the mindset where they feel like they've achieved something and that's it. And the next thing they know, they look around a year's time and everyone else who never had that certification before has achieved that certification and two more or got more education somewhere, and they're thinking, hang on a minute, what happened? They're no longer relevant and they're outdated. So it's very important to make sure that we stay on top of things and we actually understand what's new, what's happening. And in privacy, with all of this AI tech and all these new things coming in and this innovation and innovative use of technology, it's really important to make sure that we're always keeping up to date and on the board.

Emerald: 48:49

Yeah, and I also think just for anyone who's listening, it's very normal to always feel like you're at least ten steps behind. Because that's how I feel constantly in privacy, because it's moving very quickly, particularly if you're looking at it globally. But yes, I totally second that. And I know that there's also something to be said for homeostasis sometimes, right? But doing one maybe not too overwhelming thing a year is a nice thing. I like to have one big thing I do every year. Like one year that might be a Ted talk, another year it might be something else, something that requires a bit of work. Because that's the thing, right, with giving a good talk so much time went into the prep, it looks like you just go up there and you stand there and give a talk and you're just like off the cuff. Anytime anything sounds really off the cuff, but still full of great content, it was super rehearsed. I rehearsed to absolute death.

Jamilla: 49:41

Jamal's got more books to show everyone.

Emerald: 49:42

I bought that book years ago when I was a huge Ted fan, never thinking I'd actually be so lucky as to be invited to do one. I must have, I'd say, 100 plus hours of practice.

Jamilla: 49:57

Wow.

Emerald: 49:58

Amazing. That's the truth behind it.

Jamilla: 50:01

We are coming to the end of the podcast. So our last question for you, Emerald, is an opportunity to ask Jamal a question.

Emerald: 50:09

So I know that we have quite a mental health focus here, but I think when talking about privacy and data these days especially, really hard to avoid, right? Like when you're training algorithms on data that contains biases and other stuff we don't really want to perpetuate. And also the depression example that Jamal gave us, very on point. I would ask you, what do you think is the most important thing companies can do to ensure their products and services don't damage the mental health through the improper use of data?

Jamal: 50:40

That's a fantastic question. I think the most important thing they can do is to make sure they actually have somebody in the company who is just checking to see, hey, how cool is this? Or how creepy is it? On the cool to creepy scale. As long as there is somebody there who has some kind of exposure or experience to some of the great stuff you do, Emerald with the ethics side of things, then I think you'd really have those balances in check. And one thing you mentioned earlier is you said genuinely, companies always want to do the right thing. But sometimes that purpose scope and that creep scope goes so far away because of what's possible in some of these IT tech meetings that might happen in another part of the world. That when you suddenly take a step back and look and you're like, wow, how did we get to this stage? Like, nobody sees it happening. You have such a tunnel vision. It's like, oh, and it can do this and it can do this, and we can even do this, and isn't it great that we can do this? But you don't actually take a step back to see what is the impact this is happening on the actual data subject, or the user whose data we're manipulating this way, that we're collecting in this way, or that we're feeding into this algorithm that we've created. And I think as long as companies make sure that they appoint somebody or someone takes that responsibility to say, hey, I'm going to be the voice of reason and I'm going to take a step back, I'm going to come and check what's happening and what we're doing here to make sure that we maintain that balance and it stays cool rather than goes creepy. So I think that's probably the best thing they could do is make sure they appoint someone just like you'll point a Data Protection Officer or a Privacy Officer or a CXO, have somebody who will actually come and be that check

Emerald: 52:19

Yes, I think that's a great answer. And at the end of the day, it's always funny, it always comes back down to human intervention. The machine can't do it. It still has to be a person who goes, hang on a second, that's probably, unintentional consequences are probably not what you want to do. That's kind of where my initial comment came from, which I was saying, most people don't set out to do something bad. I choose to believe that most people are inherently good people. I know not everyone agrees with that view of the world, but I think you have a better life that way.

Jamilla: 52:54

I think that was my favourite question for Jamal so far. I found that really interesting. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today, Emerald. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Emerald: 53:03

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Jamal: 53:06

Yes. Thank you, Emerald. It's been an absolute privilege to spend the last hour speaking with you.

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