From McPrivacy to Mastery: A Collaborative Approach To Building Strategic Privacy Programs

Alan Chapell is the President of Chapell & Associates, a law firm serving the interactive technology, media, and advertising industries. He has served for 20 years as an outside counsel and privacy advisor to VC-funded AdTech and MarTech companies. Alan is also the Principal Analyst for The Chapell Report, a monthly continuous information research tool that helps investors and compliance teams understand the key privacy, competition, and regulatory trends driving the advertising and media marketplace. In this episode… Businesses often struggle to balance their privacy programs with the demands of evolving privacy laws and operational obligations. Privacy programs often reveal hidden vulnerabilities — what some call the "privacy underbelly" — that can expose companies to risks. With a growing patchwork of state privacy laws, businesses need to adopt flexible, proactive strategies to maintain compliance while aligning with business objectives. How can privacy and business teams collaborate to build strategic privacy programs? Privacy professionals need to bridge the gap between compliance and operational goals by clearly explaining liability risks to business teams while aligning privacy initiatives with organizational objectives. Leveraging privacy resources like The Chapell Report can provide actionable insights into evolving regulations, helping privacy and business teams simplify complex concepts to collaborate effectively and build trust with each other. In this episode of She Said Privacy/He Said Security, Jodi and Justin Daniels speak with Alan Chapell, President of Chapell & Associates, about balancing privacy programs with business priorities and compliance obligations. Alan discusses strategies for navigating complex privacy regulations, finding hidden vulnerabilities in privacy programs, and aligning privacy efforts with business goals. He also explains the need to push back against his concept of "McPrivacy" — an oversimplification of privacy measures that can create risks in privacy programs.