Get Ready For Something Different!

On the 50th episode of the Privacy Pros Podcast, join Jamal and Jamilla as they take a look back on their podcast journey. Get an inside look into their favourite moments, success stories from the Academy and behind-the-scenes stories that will leave you shocked!

They also give a glimpse into what the future holds for the Privacy Pros Academy and the podcast.

This special episode is not to be missed!

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Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Privacy Pros Academy podcast. My name is Jamilla, and as you may know, I am one of your hosts. And for our special episode, it's our 50th podcast. We're doing a little something different to celebrate. As always, I've got Jamal with me, who is the CEO at Kazient Privacy Experts and Fellow of Information Privacy, and much, much more. And we will be chatting today about some of our top highlights, some of our most memorable moments from the last 50 episodes. Are you excited, Jamal?

I’m excited but when you said looking back at highlights, I'm thinking, oh, I've got a bit of brain fog right now. I don't want to show myself up.

That's right, yes.

So it's been a year and a half of podcasts.

The first one was with me, and then I interviewed Gbenga, and then we spoke to Robert Baugh, Avishai, Claire Archibald. Yeah, it’s taken off from there really.

Looking back, they were really fun. I remember really enjoying Avishai’s because he spoke about Marvel. I think my ice breaker question was, would GDPR still stand in the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe? I remember really enjoying that podcast.

I still remember that podcast. You said does GDPR apply in Asgard?

Yeah, exactly. Asking the importance of questions as always on the Privacy Pros Academy podcast, what other memories kind of stand out for you, Jamal?

So, just a bit of warning to everyone listening today. So I usually get a brief on what the podcast is likely to be about, so I'm really prepared. But on this one, my team have insisted that there is no prep. I just come live and I do my thing. So you're going to have to forgive me if I sound like I'm high on Red Bull or something like that, or if my memory is foggy because I've had no prep for this one.

That’s usually my area of expertise being high on Red Bull. But what are some of the most memorable moments that you can think of that jump out? The ones that we can share. There's many more we can't share.

You mean in relation to the podcast or life in general.

The podcast.

The podcast. You know, what's really stood out for me from the podcast is not one particular individual or not one particular episode, but just how willing people at the top of their game are to come and share and give back and how committed they are to helping other people develop. Because look, nobody gets paid to come on this podcast. We don't take money from any vendors or anyone that's trying to promote their product on any of our episodes. We will speak to people who have something positive to contribute. But every single person that's come on and they've been so inspiring and they all have this positive attitude and they've given so much valuable tips that I often, as you know, I actually make notes viewing the podcast. In fact, I make notes when I speak to anyone who I find inspirational, and I've taken so much value away from that and that's really helped me to grow as a professional. And the other thing that I love so much is every time somebody does a podcast, I invite them to come and join our exclusive privacy pros community on Signal. And we've got such a powerful network there of the people at the top of their game, all with this positive attitude, all committed to making this world a better place and making sure that every woman, every man, and every child has freedom over their personal information. And whenever you have a challenge, whenever you have a tricky situation come up, whenever you're working in a new jurisdiction, there's always someone there who's willing to help with the answers, which would otherwise have taken me, my peers, hours and hours worth of research. And then even then, you might not always be led to the right answer because you're looking at it from a theoretical point. But then when you've got people from all over the world who've actually done that and are doing it and they can point you in the right direction, that has been so valuable. That has been so valuable.

Yeah, and I think it's really helped us kind of learn and grow from all the people that we've had on the podcast.

Yeah. And you know, the one thing that I love about how you direct our guests in this podcast is we take the time to learn more about the individual rather than focus too much on the techie and the legalese stuff. And there's so much great content out there already. But what I love is how you've found the ability to bring the best out of people, so people can actually see who they are behind that data protection role or behind that data protection title. And we give people an opportunity to really shine. And I think it's really important to celebrate all of the wonderful individuals that come on our podcast and all the wonderful privacy pros who are yet to come on the podcast. And so we can celebrate them as individuals and really we know of everything they've achieved.

Yeah, I totally agree. And in addition celebrating the people on our podcast, I'd also like to celebrate the team that edits our podcast. Because I don't know if you remember, last year I did a podcast with you and it was the two of us and it ended up taking us about 3 hours to film a 30 minutes segment cause we just kept laughing.

Yes, that's the reason I keep coming back to do these podcasts with you. 50 episodes of Jamilla. Oh my God, we have so much fun behind the scenes. And I think that's one thing that the guests really love about the podcast is how down to earth and fun it is. And that's the whole point, right? Like nobody is going to give up their time to be serious, people will, but we want to make sure that people have fun and that they understand the energy that we're about and it's always so much fun. And I think somebody promised once that there's going to be, what do you call it, the bleep moment? What do you call them?

Bloopers.

Bloopers. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing the bloopers. But the thing I think sometimes we forget or we take for granted is just how much effort goes into just making one episode. Obviously we make this podcast available for people for free, but of course it costs us as a business a lot of money. So first of all, we have to have somebody who is researching the guests. That takes time. We have to have the resources and we have to invest in the platform for the recording. And then we have to actually make sure that we've got somebody to do the editing and then we've got a videographer who does the video edit and all of this, every single episode, actually we were doing the stats the other day each episode takes us between four to 6 hours of time per episode. And if you do, let's say the average cost per hour is about 30 quid, that's about £180 that we have per episodes. So if you've done that 50 times already, then that's been a significant investment. This is the reason why I say, look, yes, the podcast costs me money, the podcast costs the business money. But I'm so glad that we do it because this is kind of like, and you're going to laugh when I say this, but this is kind of like our gift to the world. And there's so many people in so many parts of the world who want to join the academy and they can't because of financial resources, because of time resources, or whatever other constraints they have. One thing they do say is, we love listening to your podcast. Please keep bringing on guests. They often suggest great guests. And it's really helped us to get the tips, the wisdom, the expertise from all of our amazing guests out to some very remote parts of the world. And I was just looking at this before I jumped on I love my stats. It says that we are going out to 109 countries right now. So what was it like just under a year and a half ago, we sat down, it was just me, you, Mahmoudat. But now we are going out to 109 countries and that is a global impact. And the impact is one of the things that I'm really passionate about. And to be able to reach people in some of these really remote places is amazing, is amazing. So we've got people listening from Australia, we've got people listening from Azerbaijan, we've got people listening from the United States, Canada. In fact, the US seems to be our biggest audience right now. We've got UK, Europe, we've got representation on all six continents, which I think is amazing.

We just need to tackle Antarctica, that.

We will need to find somebody who lives there.

Okay?

And then I don't know. I don't actually know how these stats work.

Penguin GDPR will be working.

There you go. This is a really good time to appreciate and acknowledge all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes from the rest of the team. Mahmoudat, Ghita, Hassan. So guys, I know most of the time when we're on the podcast, you hear from me, you hear from Jamilla, but there's so many people on the team who actually worked really hard to make sure that we bring a value packed episode week in, week out, that it sounds great and you guys have a valuable and pleasurable listening experience. So I want to really show my appreciation, share my appreciation for Mahmoudat specifically, because she doesn't most of the heavy lifting, but for also you, Jamila, because you make such a great host and your wit is amazing. And for the rest of the team who all pulled together to make this podcast what it is, we've been ranked the number one data privacy podcast. I think we got that title quite early on last year, which was just out of the blue. And we've also been ranked the top three GDP podcasts as well. And both those things, we didn't actually do anything to go and achieve those. They wrote to us and said, yes, we've ranked you the number one data privacy podcast. It was actually quite humbling and also very touching at the same time because like you said, it took us 3 hours just to edit one the first episode. And then you got to think about the graphics. Oh, yeah, look at me here. I completely forgot about Yassin, our graphics designer. Now you got to put them out and then we've got to make sure it goes out on all the different platforms.

And Aditi takes care of the Calendly link and then Ananya helps with guests. And then your lovely wife used to be editing the podcast as well when we first started out. So shout out to her as well.

Yeah, Rahena did a great job editing those podcasts. And then, of course, she got pregnant. And then my daughter Amy, she's now eight months old, being the best gift ever. Grateful to God for that. She's keeping my wife very busy right now.

I've been dared. So I've made very good friends with one of the guests that we had on, and I told him we were doing 50th anniversary special. I said, Shall I give you a shout out? And he said, yeah, go on. Like I'm not going to do it, so shout out Alex.

Alexander Fetani right. All right.

See, this is what I like about the podcast. I kind of just talk nonsense for about an hour, and it seems to go down quite well, but it's definitely been a memorable year and a half.

What stood out for you, Jamilla?

Yeah, it's been good. I think it's something that I didn't know if I'd be good at before we kind of started. I think I'd done a webinar before and kind of joined the team three years ago, nearly no . It will be three years next month. I just realized, as kind of a researcher, I was doing blog posts, and then I did that webinar, and you were like, let's get you on and do a podcast. And I thought, Why? But I think it's something that it's just talking, and I'm quite good at talking to people and getting things out of people that might be less about their professional life, more about them as a person. And, you know, on the last podcast we did, we were talking about things like softer skills being important, and I place a lot of value on kind of softer skills, making people feel at ease, being able to get things out of them. You know, we were talking as well about when we had a guest on, and I had to entertain them for 30 minutes to make them happy before a podcast, and I seemed to do that okay.

You did amazing that day. I still can't believe that we made Eduardo wait all that time because I had technical challenges on my end. And this was the podcast I was most looking forward to. Because before I actually planned to do the podcast. I had a top ten list of guests I wanted. And Eduardo was one of them. And I had to wait two years for him to be available to come one. And you’d think I'd have two years of preparation to make sure I got it right. Oh, my gosh. That was probably the worst moment of the podcast life so far. And you don't know, but I was actually sweating so much here on the camera. When Eduardo came on, I had to wipe the sweat because I was under so much pressure. I felt so anxious, and I was just like, this is so embarrassing. We've got Eduardo. I've kept him waiting for 20 minutes. I'm surprised he's still here. That's why I kept checking in with you. Say, has he left? He's still here, but a credit to his patience. And he’s such a gentleman. He's such a nice guy.

Yeah. So he was the guest that you said you were waiting two years for him to come on. Who else were you shocked that we got? Not shocked, as in, like, they shouldn't be on the podcast, but they're real heavyweight and you’re like wow.

The godfather of privacy. Jules Polonetsky. Yes, because he was one of the more straightforward guests that we had. I reached out to him on LinkedIn and he's like, yes, I’’ do it. I was expecting not to get any responses for a long time, but again, the testament to the character. What a gentleman, I call him the godfather of data privacy, because when you look at his career, when you look at everything he's achieved, you can actually see he's in there influencing politicians in the most powerful nation on earth. Right. And he's promoting privacy and he's the CEO of the Future of Privacy Forum. And for those of you who aren't familiar with that, they get all of the leading privacy professionals from the leading companies from around the world, and they actually have debates and discussions on how they can move privacy forward. And they're making huge those decisions, those discussions, they have huge impact across industry. So, for example, let's just take Facebook, for example. One of the things I'm most pleased about, let's say, is I actually got to empower the data privacy counselor for Facebook. Facebook has got about 3 billion accounts, I think they have about 3 billion accounts, which is almost half the population of the globe. And through this podcast, we were able to attract somebody who is in a position to have a significant impact on so many individuals. And this podcast allowed us to reach them where I managed to work with them and empower them. And that's just so inspiring. We can actually get a massive company like that to bring positive changes. Obviously, Facebook is very easy to pick on. They have lots of privacy challenges. But look, we need to cut them some slack, because when you're that big, when you have that many people around the world, when you have that much technology going on, it is challenging. It's very difficult. I struggle with my family to decide which restaurant I'm going to go out to. Right, but then you've got this multinational firm with so many individuals, in fact, so many people. But it's such a privilege and an honour to be able to connect with people, empower them, because you know that's then going to go and make a massive difference.

Yeah. I think for me, I really enjoyed speaking to women in the industry. So, like, Odia we had on, we had Emerald on. And I think from what I've heard, data privacy can be quite a male dominated space. So I think seeing more women at the top of their game, it can only be inspiring for all the women that we've got coming through the academy as well.

Yeah, and I actually loved that one of our objectives was to make sure that we actually reach out to more female guests and more guests from black and minority ethnic backgrounds so we can be part of leading that change to drive diversity and inclusion and equity within the industry. And this podcast has been an amazing tool to inspire people from all over the world to believe it doesn't matter where they're from, doesn't matter what their educational background is, they still can make it in the privacy industry. And all of the guests share their top tips on exactly what they need to do to build that roadmap to also have a rewarding and fulfilling career in privacy.

So as well as people that we've had on the podcast who are kind of at the top of their careers, we've also had people who have a newly into their career. So, just graduated from the Privacy Pros Academy, what would you say were the kind of biggest success stories from those batch of guests that we've had?

Oh, that's a tricky one because everyone who goes through the Accelerated Privacy Pros program has such transformational, life changing results, it's very difficult to pinpoint one. But there's one I always talk with because everyone can see without knowing the backstory, just how much of a profound shift in impact it's had in somebody's life. And that's Tahir right. So when Tahir joined, he's already been on the podcast, listen to his episode. But he's somebody who went from having no professional experience, no educational background, being self-employed working in the family business his whole life, up until the point he joined the academy and he came in, he worked really hard, he did every single thing I asked him to do and he did it to the best of his ability. He paid attention, he put the work in and then towards the end, or right after he graduated, he managed to get an offer as a data privacy manager. And at the time he was worried, Jamal, what am I going to do? I just got this offer. They love me, they love everything I said. They picked me over candidates with more experience. That was a part of the feedback they gave him. But he's there, he's making massive impacts in that company. They've actually merged with another company now and he's having a massive impact and he's seen as the go to privacy authority in the industry. And he then came back and he said, look, I want to upskill myself and empower myself more because there's all of these program level changes and I don't really understand how to manage the program. And he's got the right attitude, the right drive, and he's been able to transform not just his life, but the life of his young family, his wife and his child as well. And he's just getting started. I'm so excited because I know how much effort this guy puts in to see where this journey takes him. I'm looking forward to celebrating your successes, but it's not just people who have come from a completely different background. I mean, yes, we have people like Zainab, people like Fayaaz

I was going to mention Zainab. I think Zainab worked in retail, we have Fayaaz on him and didn't Tahir find out about the program from Fayaaz?

I think it was something on Fayaaz’s Facebook.

That made him want to reach out. So it kind of like shows, I guess, the level of how excited people are and how much they value the program that they're talking about it on their personal social medias.

So we're kind of halfway through our podcast and I want to take it away from the podcast and kind of do an icebreaker question in the middle because I feel like it. And I'm in charge of this podcast.

Yes you are. You’re the boss.

I was thinking earlier, and I think I told you about last week, and I met someone who had invented an AI system that could note or could spot an organ failure before it happened, basically. So like two days in advance. And I was thinking, okay, that's a great use of AI and technology and things like that, but the development, especially in relation to AI and privacy, does it ever scare you the way some things are going?

Yes, I mean, just this week we've seen that the Information Commissioner's office has put a blanket ban on using technology to read and make predictions about based on people's emotion recognition. So it's like any tool, you can use it for good or you can use it for evil. And it completely comes down to the individuals who are in charge of making those decisions, which way it goes. But if you look at the example of Clearview AI, you can see completely irresponsible collection and violation of people's rights.

And this is the emotion one?

No Clearview, the facial recognition, they were just going around scraping data anywhere. They couldn't build in a database of people on their database without telling anyone, without informing anyone. And we can see a number of supervisor authorities have fined them. But again, so it's scary if someone like Clearview AI that we know of can do that. What about the other companies that we don't even know? What are they doing with our data?

Yeah, it does sound good. And the fine that was given out or the ban, so that was given up by the ICO this week, is that because emotions can be used for advertising or is it being used for more darker means, I guess.

I think without going into too much detail because I didn't prepare beforehand. The ICO’s position is that we don't have enough evidence to say that these are accurately reading people's emotions. Until we can verify that they are accurate, we shouldn't be using them to make decisions that's going to have an impact on the individuals because it could lead to really poor results and it could, in extreme circumstances, have a serious impact on people's rights and freedoms.

We're going back into kind of dissecting the last 50 podcast, looking at Caviar, looking at the Privacy Pro academy and I guess looking to the future. So what do you see next for the academy and next for the podcast? Whichever one first.

That's a lovely vision, and I think, as you said, Kazient can’t, as much as we would love to do it all on our own and by training people, you know, that those people then are up to the standard, they are qualified, they are professional, they exhibit all of these qualities. And yeah, let's look forward to the future. But what about the podcast? What's your vision for the future of the podcast?

I want to get this podcast into the hands of more people, especially in more remote parts of the world so they too can understand privacy. They can really appreciate the valuable tips, the insights and the up to date news that our guests bring to the table and they share. And I want to help our guests to improve their visibility because everyone comes because they're really passionate about something and they want to get a message out. And I want to help them to make sure that their messages reach as many individuals as possible as well, so that we can serve them that way. I'd love to see more brilliant guests on the podcast. And, you know, I actually want to see some of the people who have gone through the academy on the podcast. Historically, we've bought people who have been on the accelerator program, but we're getting so many amazing results from people who are doing the ultimate certification programs. I'd love for them to come and share their journey because when we brought Tahir on, the amount of people that messaged on LinkedIn saying they're inspired by him, it's crazy. And I was like, hang on a minute. If that many people were inspired by Tahir here, what about all of the other amazing people that come through the Academy? I know their stories because I work with them, right? But people don't know their stories. And if you gave them an opportunity to share their stories, it would give more people the permission to also show up and achieve great things. And if you see one person can achieve something, then there's nothing stopping you from being able to achieve those results or even do even better. Right? So if we can bring all of the amazing mentees that we have in the academy and get them to share some of their stories, what are some of the challenges they come across and how they could overcome them? There'll be somebody that tunes in and say, hey, I resonate with that. That sounds just like and you know what? I'm inspired by them to go and take some action and to improve my professional career as well.

Yeah, definitely. I think with what you said about remote countries, we were going through the country list beforehand and it's amazing that we're in 109 countries except Libya. Libya, I'm watching you. As someone who is half Libyan, can you please start listening to the podcast? But I think it's really encouraging that we've got people from so many countries because I think sometimes people might think that data protection is like a European thing because of the GDPR, but we've had guests from across the world who have spoken about data protection, data privacy. We've had someone from Qatar, we've had India, we've had the US, we've had European countries. And I think it's really important that we look at privacy as a global thing and not just in a very kind of Eurocentric way. So it's really good that we've got so many people engaged, both guests and listeners from all over the world.

And is it a learning experience for you and the team to kind of have people from all over the world, things that maybe encourages or helps you look at data privacy from different countries that you might never have thought of before?

Yeah, and I think that's what people love most about the program. So when we do the program, we obviously ask for the feedback. And one common thing people say is, I love the variety on the training. And it's not just a training like, it doesn't end at the training. We created a community. So when you come and join one of our programs, you'll be in a community with anyone who's ever actually joined one of our programs. And we have people from all over the world. And if you look at some of the discussions there a lot of people say you under sold the program, you should told us about it. You just signed up to the community. Yeah, because there's people at all different levels from all over the world providing input, providing guidance, coming in with fresh perspectives, coming from different industries, and it all brings and enriches every single person so much more.

That's absolutely amazing. So the final thing I wanted to ask you is if you could give one message to our listeners that have stuck with us for 50 episodes, what would it be?

I would say wherever you are on your career journey right now, whatever frustrations you have, wherever you might be feeling stuck, it's just a mindset. It's just a self-limiting belief and a self-limiting decision. There is something inside you that's holding you back, and it's not even true. And all you have to do is commit to making a decision. Take action. Because you've seen it for yourself. It's the action takers that get the results of if you're sitting there thinking about something, thinking about making a move in privacy, thinking about pivoting, thinking about taking a certification, thinking about joining a training program, don't think about it, just do it. Make a decision, but then do everything you can to make that decision be right for you. So many people I speak to, so many people, that message on LinkedIn, they're always like, I want to make a decision. Can you help me out? I can't help anyone make any decisions. What I can do is to help you explore your options so then you can make an informed decision about what you should be, your next steps to achieve the professional goals that you want to achieve, to have a more challenging, a more rewarding and a more fulfilling career. But take action. That is the number one message I have. The fact that you're actually giving up your time to listen to the podcast and you're taking wisdom from all these amazing guests is the first step. But the second step is to take more decisive action, right? So I encourage everyone to take action. And one of the things that really stood out for me was one of the people on our Ultimate programmes. And she messaged me, she said, hey, Jamal, I just aced this interview. And when I was at the interview, I was getting answers and I don't know where they came from, but then I realized it's through all of the great things I've been hearing on the podcast and it made me look so knowledgeable and so passionate, and I love it, but I was like, but you are knowledgeable, and you are passionate.

Yeah.

They're like, oh, yeah, it's me. I’m like it’s all you. You’re amazing. You put yourself in that position, you listened to those podcasts, and your brain has found the right opportunity to just show how much you’ve grown.

It's funny how things that we listen to and we maybe not even we listen to it passively and yet it still sticks in our brain somewhere. I think my message to people listening, firstly, thank you for listening to us over the last 50 podcasts. And also, I do accept fan mail and we'll be setting up a PO box because of data privacy, can't give out my address.

Yeah. And Jamilla, just for everyone listening. In case there’s any confusion, Jamilla actually has far a bigger and wider reaching fan base. And I haven't had any emails come in, but Jamilla has had lots of requests for lots of amazing things. And actually, I don't know if this is going to make the cut or not, but Jamilla, your wish has been fulfilled. Amy and Rahena have just arrived.

Hello.

Hello.

Hi, Amy.

Do you want to say bye bye so we can wrap up the podcast?

All right, Jamal, before we end, what's your most memorable podcast episode?

So there's this episode that aired, and if you go back and listen to it, you can make it out. But at the time, Rahenaa was pregnant with beautiful Amy, and she had morning sickness, and you can actually hear her wretching her guts out. If you listen to the podcast.

So funny, I didn't even notice it. So it can’t have been that loud.

I don't think anyone noticed it. It was hilarious.

I’ve got to go back and start listening.

Another memorable moment was when it was in the middle of the podcast and then Jamilla messages me and says, my house is on fire. Is it okay if I go away for five minutes?

In sha Allah God willing, one day.

All right, well, thank you, everyone, for listening to this special episode celebrating our 50th episode of our podcast, and we hope to see you for the next 50 and the next 500 and the next however many episodes we do in the future.

Yes, thank you so much to everybody who has listened to a single episode or a partial episode, and especially if you're subscribing. Why don't you reach out and tell us what you want to hear more about? Are there any particular guests that you'd like to see? Are there any specific topics that you want us to cover more of or less of? Let us know, because we want to make sure this podcast is the most powerful podcast to help you get from where you are right now to where you want to get to. And my team and I were committed, doing everything we can to make sure that we use this podcast in the best way to serve you as much as possible. So reach out to us. Let us know what we can do. If you want to find out more about the Academy, then reach out to me on LinkedIn. And if you have an idea for anything that you want us to explore, then also reach out and let us know about those as well.

Yeah, definitely. Please do reach out and share the podcast and comment on our posts about the podcast and let us know what you want to hear more of, and we hope to see you on the next podcast. Take care. Bye.

And just in case you're wondering, no alcohol was consumed prior to the recording of this podcast.

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