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(The following story was provided by the International Association of Privacy Professionals.)
PORTSMOUTH — When driving through Pease International Tradeport, you may have passed a building with a ping pong table out front and a bright green sign reading “IAPP.” What awaits inside can only be described as the tech startup energy one would expect to find in Silicon Valley. Art highlighting privacy and AI surrounds more than 250 employees of the International Association of Privacy Professionals busy collaborating with teammates and members across the globe.
For the IAPP, the rapid growth of AI — with the advent of ChatGPT in 2022 — and the accompanying impacts on the business community prompted it to rethink its mission from helping just privacy professionals to do their jobs better to include AI governance, cybersecurity and digital responsibility professionals.
Now, the IAPP is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
When it all began
Twenty-five years ago, as the internet started to engrain itself into everyday life — as AI is now — a fledgling group of business leaders realized they needed something to help them grapple with a burgeoning and thorny challenge: privacy.
How do you keep customer and employee data safe in an era where sharing data is as easy as a click of a button?
On the heels of 1990s-era laws like HIPAA and COPPA, each a health and children’s privacy law respectively, and the rapid growth of personalized advertising, many professionals were asked to add this novel privacy task to their job descriptions. But what is privacy, and how were other companies navigating the seemingly limitless opportunities and risks with the online world?
Originally named the Privacy Officers Association, the group merged with a similar group to form the International Association of Privacy Professionals, which aimed to provide a forum for these new “privacy professionals” to share and learn industry best practices and trends from each other.
A global community was born.
Yet, where that association would be housed was up in the air. Whereas most trade associations sprout up in places like Washington, DC, the IAPP took a different journey.
From the Bagel Basket to Pease Tradeport
In December 2002, the IAPP, named its first executive director to lead the organization. For J. Trevor Hughes, a graduate of Maine Law School and resident of York, there was one catch: Sure, he would take on this new leadership position, but he was going to raise his family in York.
Instead of a big city, the IAPP would get its start in coastal southern Maine town.
By 2004, with a small staff and 1,000 members, the IAPP’s “national office” was open for business on York St. right next to the Bagel Basket. Within three years, the IAPP had grown to nearly a dozen employees and 5,000 members, prompting Hughes to move the office to a larger farmhouse on Cider Hill in York.
In the meantime, more privacy laws passed — including one that required businesses to post a privacy notice on their website for customers to see how their data is being collected and used. Now every company has a privacy notice.
With more legal obligations, a rapidly expanding internet and the introduction of the iPhone and social media, the profession exploded. And to keep up with demand, the IAPP hired dozens more employees, quickly outgrowing the farmhouse with its spacious 5,200 square feet. There was neither enough parking spaces for employees nor room big enough to hold staff meetings.Â
When 2011 rolled around, it was time for a big change. That January, the IAPP crossed the border and opened shop on the Pease Tradeport in Portsmouth. By then, the IAPP had 9,000 members and a staff approaching 100. Its new office comprised 54,000 square feet, more than 10 times the size of the farmhouse. That entire space is now full.
The hockey-stick growth of the privacy profession only accelerated over the next decade. First there was the Edward Snowden revelations in June 2013 that exposed the vast surveillance capabilities of the U.S. Massive data breaches also became mainstream: First Target, then Home Depot in 2013 and 2014. In 2016, the European Union passed a major data protection regulation capable of fining companies hundreds of millions of dollars.
Now, nearly 20 U.S. states have comprehensive privacy laws, each providing consumers with new privacy rights, including in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Maine and Massachusetts may not be far behind.
The IAPP’s presence now extends far beyond the seacoast, with employees in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, an office of more than 20 employees in Brussels, Belgium, as well as and hundreds of volunteers globally. It hosts nine global conferences annually, drawing in thousands of attendees eager to expand their expertise.Â
Past keynote speakers have included the names like comedian Trevor Noah, Apple CEO Tim Cook, author Margaret Atwood, former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow, J.D. Vance and many more.Â
A global organization with a local touch
A little more than a decade ago, the IAPP rented The Music Hall in Portsmouth for a two-day event that gathered artists, business leaders and academics to the area during a beautiful week in June.
Since then, the IAPP has made a tradition of bringing its board of directors — leaders from some of the world’s biggest companies — to Portsmouth for its leadership retreat. Most recently, the IAPP hosted the event at Jimmy’s Jazz and Blues Club, and featured representatives from the White House, Google, IBM, Meta and Microsoft, as well as Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center. Â
This June, Portsmouth will be the destination for an even bigger event, with business leaders, academics, and lawmakers from around the world. The IAPP and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, will jointly host “Navigate: Digital Policy Leadership Retreat 2025,” expected to bring 500 attendees to downtown Portsmouth.
The event will bring digital policy leaders from industry, government, academia and civil society to cross-pollinate ideas spanning privacy, AI governance, cybersecurity law, online safety, competition and digital responsibility. For the IAPP, making Portsmouth global hotspot for the privacy, AI governance and digital responsibility community is just one of the ways it has incorporated itself into the greater Seacoast region.
The IAPP also aims to take part and give back to the community. Each holiday season, the IAPP’s staff donate canned goods to Gather to help feed the less fortunate. It also sponsors the Prescott Park Arts Festival every summer as well as Strawbery Banke’s 10th anniversary celebration of the Labrie Family Skate at Puddle Dock Pond.
As global organizations grapple with dynamic and rapid advances in AI and all of the data protection and safety concerns that come along with these innovations, it will be the IAPP, located here in the Seacoast, that will help industry leaders navigate this complex space.