Beatrice Botti is the Vice President and Global Data & Privacy Officer at DoubleVerify, a leading software platform for digital media measurement and analytics. After an academic career in the EU and the US, she became a contract attorney before working in various privacy roles at Virgin Pulse, including Director of Privacy, Partnerships & Legal, Privacy Officer, and Data Protection Officer.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Beatrice Botti shares how her career evolved from a contract attorney to a privacy officer in ad tech
- Breaking into the privacy industry amid evolving regulations
- The most pervasive privacy challenges companies face
- Advice for navigating emerging US privacy laws
- How companies can build privacy programs
- DoubleVerify’s role in ad tech and how privacy regulations impact the industry
- Do lawmakers and corporations fully understand privacy implications on the internet?
- Beatrice’s top personal privacy tip
In this episode…
Privacy regulations in the US are rapidly evolving, with five new laws expected to be enacted by the end of the year. But with individual governments working independently, each law is interpreted differently, making it challenging for organizations to fully comprehend privacy. So how can you build a privacy program that conforms to each law’s regulatory framework?
When it comes to privacy in the ad tech space, Beatrice Botti says that predicting the outlook of impending regulations is futile. It’s critical to prepare for uncertainty by analyzing your data’s location and categories to determine which laws apply to your business. Once you’ve collected the appropriate data, you can seek advice from a privacy consultant or attorney to help you assess possible solutions, create a compliant program, and decide on further action.
In today’s episode of She Said Privacy/He Said Security, Jodi and Justin Daniels sit down with Beatrice Botti, VP and Global Data & Privacy Officer at DoubleVerify, to discuss how privacy regulations impact ad tech. Beatrice speaks about the most pervasive privacy challenges companies face, advice for navigating US privacy laws, and how organizations can build privacy programs.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Jodi Daniels on LinkedIn
- Justin Daniels on LinkedIn
- Red Clover Advisors’ website
- Red Clover Advisors on LinkedIn
- Red Clover Advisors on Facebook
- Red Clover Advisors’ email: info@redcloveradvisors.com
- Data Reimagined: Building Trust One Byte at a Time by Jodi and Justin Daniels
- Beatrice Botti on LinkedIn
- DoubleVerify
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Red Clover Advisors.
Red Clover Advisors uses data privacy to transform the way that companies do business together and create a future where there is greater trust between companies and consumers.
Founded by Jodi Daniels, Red Clover Advisors helps companies to comply with data privacy laws and establish customer trust so that they can grow and nurture integrity. They work with companies in a variety of fields, including technology, ecommerce, professional services, and digital media.
To learn more, and to check out their Wall Street Journal best selling book, Data Reimagined: Building Trust One Bite At a Time, visit www.redcloveradvisors.com.
Intro 0:01
Welcome to the She Said Privacy/He Said Security Podcast. Like any good marriage we will debate, evaluate, and sometimes quarrel about how privacy and security impact business in the 21st century.
Jodi Daniels 0:22
Hi, Jodi Daniels here. I’m founder and CEO of Red Clover Advisors, a certified women’s privacy consultancy. I’m a privacy consultant and certified privacy professional, and provide practical privacy advice to overwhelmed companies.
Justin Daniels 0:37
Hello, Justin Daniels here I am passionate about helping companies solve complex cyber and privacy challenges during the lifecycle of their business. I am the cyber quarterback helping clients design and implement cyber plans, as well as help them manage and recover from data breaches.
Jodi Daniels 0:54
And this episode is brought to you by Red Clover Advisors. We help companies to comply with data privacy laws, and establish customer trust so that they can grow and nurture integrity. We work with companies in a variety of fields, including technology, ecommerce, professional services, and digital media. In short, we use data privacy to transform the way companies do business. Together, we’re creating a future where there is greater trust between companies and consumers. To learn more, and to check out our new best selling book, Data Reimagined: Building Trust One Byte at a time, visit redcloveradvisors.com. You ready for some fun today?
Justin Daniels 1:34
You know, I should have brought the pirate hat up for you. We’re on today’s show. Oh, that’s
Jodi Daniels 1:39
a good point. And now we’re we might be talking a little Star Wars could have brought some of your Star Wars toys.
Justin Daniels 1:47
Okay. Yes, they’re hanging out on my desk. But enough.
Jodi Daniels 1:51
But let’s introduce our fun guest. Today we have Beatrice Botti, who is the VP of global data and privacy officer at DoubleVerify. After an academic career in the EU and the US, she took up a role as a contracts attorney that quickly evolved into a privacy role at a wellness and well being company can’t wait to learn more. The actress we’re so excited to have you on the show. Yeah,
Beatrice Botti 2:15
thank you for having me. Well, so
Jodi Daniels 2:18
we have to dive in. How did we go from a contract attorney that moved into privacy and wellness and well being and now you’re playing a very active role in privacy and a big part of the advertising ecosystem?
Beatrice Botti 2:34
Yeah, I mean, if you asked my husband, he would tell you that I was born to like work in privacy, but it was definitely not the original plan. When I was in law school, it wasn’t really a career path that was talked about, I think it’s a little bit more to talk about now, although it’s really like, some schools have courses. But it’s still not a major investment that law schools are making, which is kind of interesting, because there are a lot of opportunities out there. But I had gone to law school in Europe and had gone to law school here in Boston. And the plan was for me to go into IP, hopefully patent litigation that was really my, my plan. And I graduated, and I was on a student visa. And I really get and so you know, I ended up getting another degree actually, in sport management. Totally unrelated while I was waiting for my green card. And when I finally had my green card, and, you know, work permit, I started looking for a job. And I got this like Staff Attorney role at a company called Virgin pulse, which is part of the Virgin umbrella. And they were looking for someone to do NDAs, basic contracting, and then a few months, and they were like, oh, there’s this GDPR thing happening. We don’t really know what it is. And there wasn’t really much of a plan for it. And it was kind of a conversation that evolved in this direction. Well, the actress went to law school in Europe, so she must know. That’s, that’s a leap, but I can probably read it. And then it just became, I guess, you know, to my husband’s point, I am a very private person myself. So I feel like I had a kinship with the topic. And it just worked out. I always tell people, it just kind of worked out.
Jodi Daniels 4:27
That’s so interesting, because I am a huge health and wellness fan. And in researching when I was going through some different career paths a while ago had come across actually that very company and really thought what they were doing was really interesting, and then decided, well I really like health and wellness but I think I’ll keep that as the hobby go into fibers the whole time. So it’s kind of fun.
Beatrice Botti 4:52
It’s it’s a very cool company and it has an interesting focus because it really upset, making employees and their dependents healthier. So that, you know, in a country like the United States, especially where costs of of receiving health care can get interesting, it becomes important to really focus on prevention. So, you know, when I went in, I had no idea what they did. Because, you know, even doing research at the time, the website didn’t really explain it that well. So I remember when I then interviewed for the job here at DoubleVerify, which again, is like a measurement company in the ad tech industry, you kind of have to be in the tech industry to know what it is that they do. It’s not exactly average knowledge. But I remember talking about it, and someone was like, Well, do you feel like this is going to be like a big leap? Are you like, scared of like, making the change? And I was like, Look, when I started, Virgin Pulse had no idea what they did. Like, I distinctly remember walking into my first day and being like, I guess, today learn about what the company does. Here, I was, like, I know ads exist. So I felt like I had a much better handle on what’s happening.
Jodi Daniels 6:09
Why we think if you can learn content, you can learn, you know, that type things, but basic skills, those are a little, you know, in specific skill sets are a little bit harder to teach.
Justin Daniels 6:21
Well, you know, Beatrice, I wanted to follow up. And this was kind of a question for both you and Jodi, you said, Hey, I, they said I was from the Europe. What’s this? GDPR about? But I mean, both you and Jodi, and even when I’ve had to look at GDPR, we all had to start from somewhere. It’s something that’s brand new. And even though that makes it sound mysterious. You know, what are both of your thoughts? If someone’s out there thinking, Hmm, I want to be in a privacy career. Obviously, the both of you figured it out in spades. So, you know, what, what is it that the two of you would be able to tell our audience about, you know, don’t be scared to get in there and dive in the deep end on privacy?
Jodi Daniels 6:59
Well, I’m gonna offer it to our our fancy guests here first. Well, I in
Beatrice Botti 7:03
that case, I’m going to have so I actually spend some time reflecting on whether or not it was a good idea for me to take on that project. Because I was really worried because I was like, man, if you screw this up, this is a big deal. It’s, you know, hundreds of million dollars in revenue kind of company, like you can’t really do it wrong. So I called the person that I always call when I don’t know what to do, which is my dad. I don’t know if this is a good idea. And he was like, Well, how many years have experienced as someone who’s been a lawyer for 30 years haven’t GDPR? And I was like, I don’t know, it’s a new law. And it was like, then you have the same amount of experience. Okay, I’m not sure how it works. But I’ll go with it. So I usually credit him for being the one that pushed me over the edge.
Justin Daniels 7:58
He was your Master Yoda.
Beatrice Botti 8:00
He was my Master Yoda. He was like, you know, Do or do not? There is no try.
Jodi Daniels 8:06
I think that’s true. I mean, if you think about if it hadn’t been GDPR and and had been some other topic, it’s the same, right? Every new law is brand new, and everyone is having to figure out how to do that. We’re, we’re not going to talk about this too much at the moment, but we could talk about AI and what’s transforming the industry, that’s all new, everyone has to figure it out. So I had a very similar philosophy. And I know we’re gonna dive into the states a little bit. It’s the same thing here. We have brand new state laws, you’re not going to find too many Colorado privacy experts. It’s brand new. Yeah, continuing to get drafted as we speak.
Beatrice Botti 8:43
Well, even GDPR. It’s been like, you know, going on six years, and they’re still trying to figure out what applies to what and how and, you know, every time there’s a new like DPA decision, it’s like, well, you know, you can’t do targeted advertising based on contractual obligations or like, Okay, well, can we do it on the It feels like we’re just trying every
Justin Daniels 9:06
trial and error. So, Beatrice, it’s funny, I just came back from a conference where I was speaking on cybersecurity. But even though I’m speaking on cybersecurity, we started talking about privacy. And the professionals in the room really weren’t aware of the fact we have like five laws. So from your perspective, what are the biggest privacy challenges that our companies are facing as we talk right now, in January 2023.
Beatrice Botti 9:35
And I think the challenge is, the laws, you know, the United States is a cluster of independent governments that decide to work together. So the way they draft laws is very independent. One from the other. I was at the IEP conference last year, and I think the Attorney General of Colorado was there and he was talking about how Attorney General offices make efforts to coordinate, you know, the drafting and interpretation of the law. And I was like, do they? Because it’s all different words. And we’re all confused by what sharing or sale or, you know, targeted advertising versus behavioral advertising? Are they different? Are they the same? Everybody’s defining them their own way? So I think the biggest challenge, especially for smaller companies, is to just figure out, how do you baseline all of them right, instead of having, you know, 15 different compliance frameworks, because especially if you work in tech, or you rely on the internet, borders are really a thing. So like, the degree of certainty that you can have that this person is in Colorado, is relatively limited. So I think that’s probably the biggest challenge. I know, that was the biggest challenge when I was at my old company, it’s a big challenge here, because, you know, we don’t have the budgets of some of the big tech companies that can have, you know, hundreds of in house resources and hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in diversified privacy programs.
Jodi Daniels 11:03
I was in the same room as you maybe even sitting in the same room
Beatrice Botti 11:11
by that statement. I mean, I appreciate you for being here. Sure. Before you’re saying is rooted in reality, but okay.
Jodi Daniels 11:22
And it’s interesting to see where we are following the let’s release the regulations at five o’clock on a Friday. So there’s that they’re working on a system that is pretty similar.
Beatrice Botti 11:33
Every every Friday at 5 p.m. There’s a new privacy, interpretation, regulation or rule released somewhere.
Jodi Daniels 11:40
Indeed, indeed, well, as a privacy officer, what might you offer to other privacy officers or companies who aren’t as fortunate to have someone full time in that seat? How to navigate all of these different and let’s just even focus on the US with these five different laws we’re going to have here at the end of the year, with a very significant chance of having more coming in the next year or so. What, what are you doing that another company might be able to piggyback off of,
Beatrice Botti 12:10
um, I think, you know, if you do have someone, whether part time or full time that sort of tasked with implementing privacy controls at the company, I, I always encourage people to especially like when I speak to non privacy people, I’m like, make sure you support the person because they’re probably having an emotional breakdown, as we speak, there’s too much to do, and like everyone has their own goals. And it’s kind of interesting, because I don’t think any one role in any company is completely independent from others. So I always find the I’m an independent contributor statement. Kind of funny. But when it comes to privacy, that’s absolutely untrue. You’re in the service of everybody else. And you kind of depend on everybody else, to either follow the rules, implement, you know, some recommendations, build the product, the way you’re suggesting, even though maybe they thought it would be better a different way. But I think just you know, beyond the dedicating budget, or resources, there’s a meaningful, let’s make sure that everyone in the company is taking into account how hard these people work and like trying to help them to get to a solution. A lot of the time, people that work in privacy really are just trying to find the best possible option. It doesn’t have to be my my way or the highway, but like, help me find where we’re going. Because I don’t know if you don’t help me out. If you don’t have a privacy resource, and maybe you rely on outside counsel, outside consultants, I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to invest meaningful time in explaining to the consultant or the outside counsel, what your company does, especially if you’re in tech, I think there’s a tendency to think, Oh, my God, you know, I’ll take counsel works on billable hours, I don’t want to spend six hours explaining to them how my product works, because that’s time that I’m paying for that I should be getting privacy advice. But even the most practical, outside counsel is going to have a really hard time giving you good advice that is not just conservative engineering, if they don’t understand what you’re doing. So if you enable them to understand what you’re doing, then they’ll most likely give you meaningful advice that you can realistically implement.
Justin Daniels 14:25
So for a company who’s new to creating a privacy program, particularly companies that have no in house legal role, we’re, in your opinion, where should they start?
Beatrice Botti 14:40
I mean, again, I think assessing where your data is, and what it is, helps you figure out, even like which laws apply to you, I think one of the funny, one of the funny things that I hear a lot is, well, you know, up until CCPA there were no privacy laws in the US there are a gazillion privacy laws in the US like hundreds of them, too, you know, if you look at some cities like Chicago had their own privacy biometrics law. So understanding what kind of information you use is really important. And I think that’s a step that you should take before you go and seek out advice, right? Because that will enable you to give meaningful information to an attorney to a consult and just come up with this as a summary of what we do. This is how we do them. This is the data we rely on this, how long we keep it, this is why we keep it that long. I feel like a lot of the time maybe we overthink a lot of the privacy work, we think that it’s like super complicated, but the basis of any privacy assessment is really like, what data do you have? What do you use it for? How long do you keep it? Which is pretty, you know, non non legalese questions. Finding the answer is, isn’t always entertaining. But
Jodi Daniels 15:55
it’s always fun to hear other people say what I say all day about data, and you even did it with your hands in the bucket. It’s exactly it’s so refreshing to have may not be the only person who’s has the same deal.
Beatrice Botti 16:10
I, honestly, when I when I started at my old company, they’d never had a privacy person before. So they relied on outside counsel all the time. And the one thing that I heard all the time was, they don’t give us meaningful advice, right? Everything is so difficult to implement it so strict, it’s so like, out of our reach, and I’m like, Well, what did you tell them about what you do? Because if you’re just telling them, we have health related information about employees, and we report on it to employers, like if that’s how you portray it, they’re gonna like go to 10. But if you actually say, Oh, actually, we never shared the health related information, we share aggregate information about how often people engage in physical activity, but you never know who like that was. What was getting reported on? And like that detail makes all the difference?
Jodi Daniels 16:58
Absolutely. We you talked a little bit about GDPR. And that advertising industry and some of how the the changes and interpretations are coming? Can you share a little bit about where DoubleVerify fits in the ecosystem? And then how you’re seeing the impacts of all these different interpretations? affect what you all are doing? And maybe what you’re seeing in the industry? Yeah,
Beatrice Botti 17:25
I mean, look, DoubleVerify is in in what I call, like a safer area of attack, we do measurement, we rely on very little personal information, all we have is IP address. So compared to some companies out there, we definitely have less exposure to a lot of these laws and rules. I mean, every like the the really complex aspects of a lot of these US based rules right now, revolve around the concept of behavioral advertising targeted advertising, we don’t we don’t participate in that what TV does is measure the performance of an ad and then ecosystem. So whether or not the ad was displayed in the correct geography at a very high level. So like, we don’t know exactly where you are, we just know that you’re in New York State, and we’re advertising or someone is advertising for a restaurant in New York State. That makes sense. If you were in Oregon, they probably wouldn’t. And then we we offer a lot of products that are non pie related. For example, we offer an alternative to behavioral advertising, which is contextual advertising, or as I like to call it, madmen advertising, which is, you know, I want to advertise this really fancy suit shop, I’m probably going to do it in, I don’t know, the financial section of the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, because that’s where most likely people that buy suits are going to be looking at, or the kind of content are going to be reading. So that’s the kind of advertising that we used to see a long time ago that is totally unrelated to personal data. So that puts us in sort of a, I like to say an easier position, but it also sort of charges us with a lot of responsibility because we offer an alternative to some of the more I guess, nowadays at risk forms of advertising it comes at it comes at a price in the sense that we have to spend a lot of time distinguishing ourselves from other companies. I think the ad tech industry, especially with all the changes in privacy, like it’s going through a really complex phase. I think a lot of people are trying to figure out where it’s gonna go. I think it’s kind of impossible to figure out how it’s gonna go. So I always, you know, when I talk to my colleagues, from other companies, I’m like, I feel like the most important thing to do for us is to give ourselves grace because things may change in three weeks, and we thought it was going to be one thing, and suddenly, it’s going to be another and you just got to be nimble. And the same happens for our engineering and product teams. Like you’re giving them guidance in one direction, and then something suddenly changes, you have to sort of, you know, be ready to change direction along with the privacy team. I think we’re kind of at a turning point. From a, as a society to kind of figure out like, how do we want the Internet work? How is it going to get funded because it costs money to run the internet and all this content that we deem valuable costs money. Some companies have paywalls, some companies don’t. But there’s a lot of free content out there. And a lot of that free content is paid for by advertising. I think there have been some bad actors that have done some pretty shady stuff that have given a lot of companies a really bad name. And you know, once bad things start to happen, you started like looking around or a lot of suspicion, and you’re like, are you doing the same thing? Are you doing the same thing? That’s not necessarily true? You know, the flashlight app comes to mind where we found out that they were tracking your GPS location at all times, why? Unclear? But they were doing and so when something like that happens, now you’re like, Well, does everybody do that? Should we just assume everyone is tracking everything I do. So I think a lot of the push and pull that we’re seeing in the laws and the decisions are the European the US is just we’re trying to figure out where we are and what’s going to happen next. But there’s there’s going to be sort of, there’s a policy decision that I think needs to be made first, about whether or not we’re okay with the way the internet works today. And if we are maybe the key is education, and helping people understand what happens to their data better. And if we’re not okay, then it’s going to be a big shift. And we’re going to have to figure out how we how we manage the internet without advertising or with very limited advertising.
Justin Daniels 22:06
Beatrice in you just hit the nail on the head right there. As we talk about potential, more state privacy laws, there’s a federal one being considered. Do lawmakers and the general public do they even really understand what it means when you give an email and how companies can put together all this data to create a really detailed profile? About you? I think the answer is they absolutely do not understand because if they did, I think privacy policy would look a whole lot different.
Beatrice Botti 22:35
Yeah, I mean, I think in general, the average person probably doesn’t. I mean, I was in privacy for years before moving over to the tech world. And I didn’t like I knew conceptually, that data is collected. When I’m on the internet, everything I do, I mean, everything you do, walking around, like you take the highway data is collected when you pay for your highway, like it’s data everywhere. So I knew that in sort of a vacuum, I didn’t necessarily fully understand how pervasive it is, how how some practices really can influence people’s behavior, maybe I underestimated it myself. So I think it’s always a learning experience. I do think that somehow though, the world has evolved, and we haven’t really kept up with it from like, a very basic level. So like, when I was a kid, we were going to school, we were being taught how to type on a computer. Why? Because we no longer were typing on typewriters, like that was just why they were preparing me to be able to go to college and then work in a corporate environment where I was going to be required to work with computers. We don’t do to my knowledge on a, you know, broad scale, any meaningful education to children about data, we kind of rely on parents, I assume, to educate their children about data and the average person doesn’t understand that themselves. So I think, you know, introducing some key concepts around that at an earlier age would probably be extremely valuable. I think the the challenge with education is privacy policies are oftentimes contain a lot of really good information. It’s just they’re really complicated. The internet is really complicated technology is really complicated. So even when you make really concerned efforts to write documents that explain to people how stuff works, do they read it? Is it too long? But then if it’s not, like if you don’t explain everything? Are you really providing the level of detail that enables someone who’s not familiar with the internet to understand what you’re doing? It’s just there’s there’s I think there is an underlying lack of understanding on how data is harvested and combined and that influences the average person’s inability to fully understand why a company even a right Other transparent companies might be sharing about what they do. And I think that’s, that’s a pretty deadly combo like it’s, you’re going in with no understanding and the concepts are too complicated. How could you understand like, who’s going to spend four hours on a Saturday? Trying to like comb through a privacy notice trying to figure out exactly what it means, like not the average other than Jodi as I see if it’s if
Justin Daniels 25:25
it’s if it’s a certain smart bed. Privacy number is that the one
Jodi Daniels 25:34
we have read their their privacy notice and detail before?
Justin Daniels 25:39
gusset, it was the marketing person who thought that we were nuts for asking, Well, if you collect all this data on my REM sleep, what do you do with it? Oh, we’re a big company, we have it taken care of Oh, really. It was funny. We just got to Sleep Number
Beatrice Botti 25:51
bed, and my husband was setting it up while I was doing something else. And after he set it up, he ran out. And he was like, I turned off all the data collection or you.
Jodi Daniels 26:03
See, when we’re not the crazy people,
Justin Daniels 26:06
I’d love to have a coffee with him and discuss the cause you know, what I call this person, the damsel who is often distressed over corporate data collection policies.
Beatrice Botti 26:15
i It’s funny, because I have kind of reached the point where I don’t read privacy notices anymore. I’m just kind of like, well, I want to use the services. This day, I want to do this
Jodi Daniels 26:29
thing. Well, that raises the interesting question, which is kind of the how much data is someone willing to give for the convenience of what the service or the product that they’re receiving in return. And that’s, that’s the balance, there might be a place where it would be too much if you understood what was happening and you would care but for there’s kind of this middle ground where if it’s not too egregious, then you’re willing to have that balance. But at some point, it might teeter in the other direction. If they, you know, if you turned it all off, and there’s still a secret backdoor that they’re able to collect, it probably wouldn’t be okay with that.
Beatrice Botti 27:08
Yeah. And I mean, I think that’s one of the things that maybe our discourse is missing a little bit like, I feel like a lot of the time we’re having a conversation where it’s either companies shouldn’t collect any data like this is all bad, or behavioral advertising just shouldn’t exist. It’s terrible. Sometimes they feel like we’re like taking autonomy away, like, what if I like behavioral advertising, like I wouldn’t have bought this purse, my husband probably would be thrilled. But I really like it. And I’m so glad that it came to me in this email.
Jodi Daniels 27:41
I think that’s an important piece. Because I, I came to privacy from the ad tech arena. And nowadays, there’s certain advertising where I want certain advertising, they don’t want others and the company won’t let me turn it off. It’s an all or nothing. No, I speak about it all the time. And I still make the company remain nameless. Maybe they’ll hire me one day. But it drives me crazy, because they haven’t moved up. As we have evolved in our life, I went different stages. And it’s either an all or nothing, I can’t pick anything. Or if I’m searching I to have found some really interesting products because the advertising was appropriate. But like you had shared before, unfortunately, there’s some bad actors who are always doing something that they shouldn’t be. And I say it all the time. It’s like we’re in kindergarten, again, it’s the same thing, one or two people do something they’re not supposed to do now we have a long list of rules that we have to adhere to. But I don’t think it should be an all or other, I think it should be a way that is meaningful for the person to be able to choose what it is that they want. If I don’t want to watch ridiculous infomercials or terrible TV, I don’t pick that channel, I pick a different channel. So you can’t count that I watched that channel. Because I didn’t pick that one. I picked what I want. If I don’t want to open the direct mail that you sent me, I’m not going to open it. But maybe I want it to be easier to not receive certain pieces and to receive something else and that it’s an all or nothing and it’s incredibly complicated as to where we’ve landed. I think it’ll
Beatrice Botti 29:13
it’ll definitely change over time. I think companies are becoming more sophisticated, my genuine hope and like it’s this is my and European thing to say like when I talk to my old colleagues from Europe, they’re always like, you become so American. I’m always equal. You know, there is a reason why in the top, you know, I think it’s Fortune 500 companies there is only one EU based tech company. It’s not completely unrelated to the kinds of scrutiny and hurdles that companies have to go through. That may be here easier and there is something to be said for encouraging innovation. It does like bring value to to the world and to society. It’s just finding the balance is always The difficult thing to do
Justin Daniels 30:03
well on that note, as we like to ask all our guests, what is your best privacy tip. Um,
Beatrice Botti 30:12
I am a big fan of keeping privacy as fun as I can. So I invest a lot of time that some people can define as wasted, that I find very helpful in coming up with silly ways to engage my teams like my company as a whole and doing different privacy related activities. So for data privacy day, last weekend, we did a privacy Wordle that we came up with for the team last year we did a crossword puzzle for three people to finish it got a one of those markers to like, black out information on your mail before we do quarterly privacy movie nights, we’re gonna do our first in person one in February. So we’re all gonna watch Minority Report and talk about all the privacy and security themes and Minority Report. So we that’s my that’s my thing, because like there’s a lot of really obvious stuff that I think a lot of people can tell you like, oh, find the, you know, common denominator across laws, build a privacy, program that baselines around it so that you’re only tweaking details, and that way you have a consistent program across all of your offices. Like I didn’t invent that. I don’t know if I meant that privacy movie night, but I brought it every company.
Jodi Daniels 31:35
That sounds fun. Are you bringing the popcorn cookies?
Beatrice Botti 31:38
Aren’t we have a popcorn machine coming?
Justin Daniels 31:40
Would you like to have privacy moving privacy cookies
Jodi Daniels 31:42
really popular last week? Privacy movie next year, we can have privacy movement? Okay, that sounds fine.
Beatrice Botti 31:49
I have a whole list of like 15 different movies I can show you can pick from the 50s to today. There we go. You can start Yes,
Justin Daniels 31:57
please send me the list. We’ll see if it passes her rigorous requirements for certain
Beatrice Botti 32:03
all like amazing movies. I’m not gonna lie. But you know, my all time favorite for privacy movie night is Gattaca.
1997 really good cast. Strongly recommend
Jodi Daniels 32:16
we look forward to the list
Beatrice Botti 32:18
Unfortunately, it was released a couple months before Titanic so it didn’t really make
Jodi Daniels 32:25
sense. Well, when you’re not building cool privacy games and identifying your privacy movie night, what do you like to do for fun?
Beatrice Botti 32:36
Um, as mentioned before, I’m a big Star Wars person. I’m kind of like a nerdy person in general. Like I love Lord of the Rings. And I love Star Wars. And I’m very committed to the Star Wars thing. I have never watched Star Trek. I know that’s offensive to some people, but I’m very committed to it. And I really love sports. I have a sports management degree. I’ve worked as a tournament organizer at tennis tournament. I have traveled ridiculous distances, including Australia. tennis tournaments. I love the Celtics. I live in Boston.
Justin Daniels 33:16
That’s the basketball team. And I’m aware
Jodi Daniels 33:17
I am I got that one. You know, I grew up in Connecticut. And we didn’t really have a team. So therefore Boston became ours as well.
Beatrice Botti 33:30
I have a friend of mine that always make because I’m not a heat. Like, I was never really big basketball fan until three years ago, maybe. And I have this friend of mine who constantly makes fun of me. And he’s like, do you want to know why you love basketball so much? And I’m like, why? And he goes, Jason Tatum is really hot. That’s what you want with that? He goes Seriously though, and he started sending me photos. And I’m like, no, he’s cute.
Justin Daniels 33:58
I thought you would say because internationally, it’s by far the most known and best marketed league around the world. You know,
Beatrice Botti 34:06
I’m gonna disappoint you on that. Because when I was living in Italy, the ones that I watched religiously and woke up in the middle of the night for other than tennis was baseball. Really? Yeah.
Justin Daniels 34:18
That’s fascinating.
Beatrice Botti 34:19
I still love it.
Justin Daniels 34:21
Because that’s the one sport that’s in deep trouble because of four and a half minutes before you know they hit the ball. And anyway, I played baseball in college. I love the game but it’s
Beatrice Botti 34:33
great. I we live just across Fenway so we go to a lot of games every every year, about this year because I don’t know if the Red Sox are going to have a full team to field after selling everybody. Let’s see. The one the one American sport that I can’t get behind this American football. If for no other reason, because you can’t call it football. You barely hit it with your feet.
Justin Daniels 35:00
Excellent point.
Jodi Daniels 35:01
Well said, if people would like to connect with you and learn more about your tennis interests, or baseball or basketball or perhaps in privacy, yeah, yeah, where could they go?
Beatrice Botti 35:14
And they can go to my LinkedIn, I have a chatty LinkedIn profile where I talk about sports a lot, not as much about privacy. And to be honest, I probably should talk more about privacy. I sometimes make funny connections between sports and privacy. For example, the fact that we know a lot about athletes. Like we know everything about the recovery. Oh, often they work out and a funny and that’s that’s really my favorite kind of social media. I don’t wait. I have an Instagram but it’s a personal one. So LinkedIn is my place. My husband calls me my favorite, my favorite social media platform, which you think’s funny. He’s a TikTok person.
Jodi Daniels 35:59
I am not a TikToker. No TikToking here. Dancing on like, no dance. I like to dance. But no, not only. Okay, no TikToking. So we are so grateful that you joined us today. Thank you for sharing your story, your insights, and we’re most appreciative.
Beatrice Botti 36:18
Thank you so much for having me on i
Outro 36:25
Thanks for listening to the She Said Privacy/He Said Security Podcast. If you haven’t already, be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes and check us out on LinkedIn. See you next time.
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