VIDEO/PODCAST: Regulation is a journey not a destination

AT A GLANCE
In this episode (which you can watch, listen to, or read), Bermuda Privacy Commissioner Alex White discusses Bermuda’s regulatory journey, why education is at the heart of his office’s mission, how Guernsey has inspired the work he does and what keeps him awake at night.

KEY POINTS 

  1. Project Bijou is a journey, launched by the ODPA in 2021, to share experiences, perspectives, stories about data – encouraging better engagement and understanding of the critical importance of ethical data use. It is important to note that what we want is a conversation beyond the walls of the regulator. This is something that affects every one of us, so we need to involve as many people as possible.
  2. Bermuda’s Privacy Commissioner Alex White says businesses have to start thinking about ethics as a priority, “as much of a priority as making a profit so how can we shift that and how can we create incentives that help individuals be encouraged either to act as an individual level or on an organisational level in a particular way.”
  3. He says that international cooperation between jurisdictions is mutually beneficial. “Just because a guidance is issued in another country, it doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant to us, best practice in Guernsey is probably best practice in Bermuda so why reinvent the wheel?”
  4. Guernsey and Bermuda may be on opposite sides of the Atlantic but we have much in common when it comes to our approaches to data protection and taking care of our regulated communities.
  5. One of the greatest challenges for both jurisdictions is the “perception problem”. We need to encourage people to see that regulation goes hand-in-hand with innovation, rather than standing in its way.

BIO 
Alex White has served as Bermuda's first Privacy Commissioner since January 2020 and a member of the Global Privacy Assembly Executive Committee since January 2022. He is a lawyer qualified to practice law in the United States and a former US federal privacy adviser and IAPP Advisory Board member, with experience working in the insurance industry and managing a state government's privacy program.

He holds a variety of privacy, legal, cybersecurity, and risk management qualifications and is a two-time graduate of the University of Georgia (US), with further coursework and study with the Harvard Kennedy School, City University (London) Law School, Law Society of Ireland, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Tsinghua University School of Law (Beijing), and Fudan University School of Law (Shanghai).