Privacy while traveling just got a little easier

This week’s Privacy Insider was written by our very own Christie Roy, Customer Experience Manager. Christie is currently in Los Angeles, though she’s been a nomad for the last year or so, which you’ll learn more about below:

I've always been big into two things: traveling and personal privacy. I come from a large family where privacy was a rare commodity, and travel presented an opportunity to find some solo downtime. As a child, I designed extensive bucket lists around travel, intended to help me escape my nine siblings and find a little private time: "Hike Macchu Picchu, visit the Grand Canyon, SCUBA dive the Great Barrier Reef." As an adult, I got a remote job and leaned into the digital nomad lifestyle so I could finally pursue all the adventures I'd dreamt of all my life.

It took me a while to make the connection between my desire for privacy and my love of travel. After all, when one thinks of digital nomads, “privacy” isn’t typically the first thing to come to mind. The Instagram world of working from a beach hammock with one’s laptop in hand seems gratuitously public, and privacy topics aren't the sexiest captions.

After 1.5 years of full-time nomading, though, I've become increasingly aware of the many ways that privacy is an incredibly important aspect of traveling. You learn to care for your privacy more mindfully than you do at home, where it's easy to assume all your business is conducted in private. When traveling, working from random Mexican cafes begs for a VPN; storing your valuables in a hostel keeps you mindful of who is watching where you stash your things; and downloading random apps recommended by other travelers at your hostel requires at least some common sense.

On top of those everyday concerns, as I've begun working with more clients and keeping their privacy top of mind while traveling internationally, I began to question the transfer of private data across borders and oceans (not to go too Jason Bourne on you here, but how confident are you that you're not being surveilled as you travel — whether by governments, hackers, or your creepy ex? What valuable data do you carry with you that needs protection?).

Enter the EU and US agreement to a new framework for cross-border data transfers - it's meant to safeguard your data privacy by enabling "predictable and trustworthy data flows between the EU and US." It's one of the latest privacy laws valuing individuals' privacy and enabling digital nomads to continue conducting business safely and securely, which helps me – and hopefully you – breathe a sigh of relief.

Top privacy stories of the week

EU and U.S. agree to new data-sharing pact, offering some respite for Big Tech

Transferring data internationally – think, in the context of when you need to use an app in another country, or when connecting with people around the world instead of in your own backyard – has been a source of anxiety for major tech companies since Privacy Shield was invalidated in 2020. Now, however, we can all take a deep breath and admire the new shiny data-sharing pact between the US and the EU. After reading the news piece below, we also highly recommend taking a glance at this fact sheet the White House released six days ago. Read More

Utah Consumer Privacy Act newest state privacy act signed into law

Utah is officially the fifth state to pass its own privacy law in lieu of waiting for a National one. The Utah Consumer Privacy Act became law on Mar 24, 2022, becoming effective on December 31, 2023. While the law provides consumers with a ton of privacy protections in relation to their personal data — including opt-out options, the ability to know what data companies collect and to request access to and even removal of said data — it deviates from the CCPA and CPRA by not providing consumers with a private course of action if a company violates the law. Read More

Delays to ID Deprecation have advertisers slow-rolling their measurement solutions

Two-thirds of advertisers have paused their efforts to transition away from third-party cookies, in part because of Google’s 2021 decision to delay its third-party cookie phaseout to 2023 and the fact that mobile ad IDs on Android are still available. While the number is still high, there has been an almost 10-point decline (over six months) in the number of advertisers using third-party cookies. Read More