Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50875
SIXTH ANNUAL INHOUSE/ACC GENERAL COUNSEL ROUNDTABLE otherwise, we just get judged as we are back to where we started with the budget. Budgets are getting cut. Do more with less. Work smart. I hear that kind of expression more. It is not look- ing at the role of the legal department in a way in which it really can assist an organization, in just looking at it as a cost factor. INHOUSE: Whether this means protecting your brand, customer, or your employees, how are you approaching protecting privacy in your legal departments? SIEVWRIGHT: We have world- renowned global privacy policies and we took the strictest standards in the www.canadianlawyermag.com m Online coverage: videos and extended discussion. world and really worked from them and obviously spent a lot of time and attention on making sure the privacy statements are up to date in terms of being on the web. We are in so many different businesses: consumer, com- mercial, corporate, enterprise, service. All of those businesses have different privacy concerns and challenges, so it is something that we are constantly working on. . . . The cross-border data is definitely an issue when you are deal- ing with a global company. One of our challenges is when you are trying to save money and you are dealing with the consolidating IT strategy around the world, there are a number of very important customers in Canada that require data to stay in Canada. So we have to work very carefully lobbying around the world with the various IT people to make sure they know and understand that certain data has to stay in the province in some cases, and certainly has to stay in Canada in other instances. Sixth Annual Sixth An /ACC General Counsel Roundtable Bringing together a cross section of Canadian legal department leaders, the roundtable dealt with important issues affecting in-house lawyers. Visit canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse to see our video coverage of these topics. Legal spending, online July 25 Corporate governance, online Aug. 1 Privacy, online Aug. 8 Privilege, online Aug. 15 Sponsored by: www.lerners.ca ACC-video_IH_Aug_11.indd 1 22 • AUGUST 2011 INHOUSE GAUDI: At The Globe and Mail, I am the privacy officer. But there is an interesting dichotomy at The Globe, of course, and any other media organiza- tion because your commercial opera- tions are all subject to privacy legis- lation, etc. It is critically important, so without knowing our customers and knowing information about our customers, you can't respond to them, and we can't address their issues in our products. . . . But we have this whole machine, that is the backbone of the organization for which pri- vacy is anathema, and we fight it very strenuously in the courts. There's no privacy in the editorial sphere, so really I see both of those sides. On the commercial side, for sure, of course we have a privacy policy. We have protocol in place. I do train- ing internally, and anything that any- body can't handle gets floated up to me, which fortunately isn't too much because, of course, as has been said previously, your brand and your repu- tation is absolutely everything, and 6/29/11 2:38:00 PM InHouse