The best privacy advisers in 2007

Larry Ponemon, head of the Ponemon Institute, agreed. “The biggest source of demand for privacy advisory services will be helping to navigate regulations.”

The lingering effects of the war on terror caught the attention of Ed McNicholas, head of the privacy practice at Sidley Austin. "The privacy impacts of antiterrorism programs — and the potential liability of corporate America for such programs — will continue to be a predominant issue for years to come," he said. But others also see trends in the marketplace posing new challenges to corporate privacy programs.

“I think more companies will start to realize over the next couple of years that legal compliance alone won't be enough to retain their customers' trust,” said Richard Purcell, head of Corporate Privacy Group.

“I anticipate a significant upsurge in companies embracing new media technologies,” said Justine Gottshall of Wildman Harrold, “and needing to address the privacy, security and related compliance issues that are inherent in utilizing new media to its fullest potential.”

Stu Ingis of Venable agreed. "New media advertising is beginning to become mainstream, and household brands will race to understand how to utilize these services while staying within legal and self-regulatory accepted practices."

“As wireless applications continue to develop and technologies further converge, new questions will arise about protecting privacy in a wireless world,” added Alisa Bergman of Venable.

With stepped-up legal enforcement, more visibility on corporate-to-government data sharing, and new technologies impacting privacy, Rena Mears, head of Deloitte's privacy practice, sees “a growing need for integrated solutions incorporating risk identification, governance, operational controls and technologies.” What will these solutions look like?

Jim Koenig, co-leader of PwC’s privacy practice, thinks major organizational changes are part of the solution. "We see a trend where CPOs and chief compliance officers are working together to build privacy, security and identity theft prevention into larger, integrated, global risk-management frameworks."

So. if you're one of the companies I contacted for the survey that didn't have someone in charge of privacy, you may be playing catch-up in 2008.

Jay Cline is a former chief privacy officer of a Fortune 500 company and now president of Minnesota Privacy Consultants. You can reach him at cwprivacy@computerworld.com.

Popular privacy-law practices

For the second year, corporate privacy professionals said Hunton & Williams was their top choice among law firms with privacy practices. Many of the top vote-getters have bolstered their incident-response and international-compliance practice areas since 2006.

Based on 393 responses to the question, "Which law firm has the best privacy practice?"

*Voting Tier I = over 10% of votes cast; Tier II = 5% to 10%; Tier III = 1% to 4%.

**Firms estimated their full-time equivalents working on privacy and provided links to staff bios to corroborate.

***Firms volunteered their key practice areas.

Top privacy audit and consulting firms

The Big 4 audit firms topped the nonlaw firm list for the second year, although Booz Allen and several smaller firms newly joined the rankings. Privacy-compliance and privacy-program creation were commonly cited practice areas in this group.

Based on 203 responses to the question, "Among consulting and audit firms, which one has the best privacy practice?"

*Voting Tier I = over 10% of votes cast; Tier II = 5% to 10%; Tier III = 1% to 4%.

**Firms reported the number of Certified Information Privacy Professionals as recorded by the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

***Firms volunteered their key practice areas.

****Votes for Minnesota Privacy Consultants were excluded.

Top 25 privacy experts

Privacy attorneys dominated this first-time poll, although a number of CPOs and consultants dotted the list.

Based on 421 responses to the question, "Which individual person would you say is the No. 1 privacy expert?"

*Voting Tier I = over 10% of votes cast; Tier II = 5% to 10%; Tier III = 1% to 4%.