Latest / Privacy Please / S7, E281 - You Don’t Have to Be First: Meta Muse, Smart Glasses & AI Rules (with Sonia Siddiqui)
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_02: Meta launched an AI agent called Muse last month.
- 0:02SPEAKER_02: It reads your email, books your travel, makes purchases.
- 0:05SPEAKER_00: My brother messaged me the day that Muse launched.
- 0:08SPEAKER_00: He's like, download Muse.
- 0:09SPEAKER_00: And I was like, don't you dare do that.
- 0:11SPEAKER_00: And I was like, how is it that you've known me your whole life and yet this was your first thought?
- 0:26SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Privacy Please.
- 0:28SPEAKER_02: I'm Cameron Ivy, your host.
- 0:29SPEAKER_02: And today my guest is someone you may already know because we've had her on the show.
- 0:34SPEAKER_02: I think it was about a year ago or maybe a little longer.
- 0:36SPEAKER_02: Uh Sonia Siddiqui.
- 0:38SPEAKER_02: She's a privacy attorney and founder of Camarack Solutions, where she does fractional privacy counsel for companies that need senior privacy expertise without the full-time hire.
- 0:47SPEAKER_02: So, Sonia, first of all, just welcome back.
- 0:51SPEAKER_02: And what have you been up to lately since last time we talked?
- 0:54SPEAKER_02: What's been going on for you?
- 0:56SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 0:56SPEAKER_00: Um, last time we spoke, gosh, was it a year ago or so?
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: Was it more?
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: I feel like it may have been longer.
- 1:03SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 1:03SPEAKER_02: And were you already, I can't remember, did you already leave uh was it Coinbase?
- 1:07SPEAKER_02: I was like Oh, Kohler.
- 1:08SPEAKER_00: I may have already left or I had been in sort of the midst of leaving.
- 1:13SPEAKER_00: But since then, you know, boutique firm has really taken off.
- 1:17SPEAKER_00: I'm really enjoying having a lot more control over just the type of work I do and the the expanse of work I get to do.
- 1:24SPEAKER_00: I think I really enjoyed being in-house.
- 1:26SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I really enjoyed about, you know, particularly my time at Coinbase was the wide portfolio of work, right?
- 1:33SPEAKER_00: Like they have so many different products and like every day was different.
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: And you got to work on very different different and challenging issues.
- 1:40SPEAKER_00: No two days were ever the same, and you'd always get a different question.
- 1:43SPEAKER_00: You know, every day was hard, right?
- 1:45SPEAKER_00: And I think I was chasing that as I was looking for my next move.
- 1:48SPEAKER_00: And I think I finally hit that again, which I feel most energized when I'm answering hard questions.
- 1:53SPEAKER_00: And so being able to work with multiple clients really gives me that variety of work.
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: I'm just having fun.
- 1:58SPEAKER_00: I just this is just fun.
- 2:00SPEAKER_00: And I think at the same time, being able to provide that value to clients just based on my own experiences in the field, it's just been fantastic.
- 2:08SPEAKER_02: What kind of things without obviously going into too much details, what are you typically seeing from your clients right now?
- 2:14SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it depends on the industry.
- 2:16SPEAKER_00: So I support a lot of fintechs, but then I also support a lot of these emerging AI companies.
- 2:22SPEAKER_00: And so the issues vary, right?
- 2:24SPEAKER_00: For the companies that are the the AI deployers and the AI developers, the sort of the companies that are in the AI ecosystem that are supporting sort of the developers as well.
- 2:35SPEAKER_00: You know, they're dealing a lot with like contending with sort of the the regulatory environment that's sort of shifting quite a bit.
- 2:42SPEAKER_00: So we have um the EU AI Act and how does that interplay with, you know, the development and deployment of these technologies?
- 2:50SPEAKER_00: And a lot of questions just generally, you know, honestly, yeah, particularly with my AI clients around like fine-tuning and training on data sets and what does it mean to anonymize and meaningfully do that.
- 3:02SPEAKER_00: And data residency has really picked up as a concern and a question as you know, companies are looking to get, you know, more involved with government entities as well and like helping support them in, you know, dissolving bureaucracy through the use of AI, right?
- 3:19SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, there's a lot of questions around just like guardrails for responsible AI use and protection of proprietary data, be that business or personal.
- 3:35SPEAKER_00: I think with fintech clients, this space has always been interesting.
- 3:38SPEAKER_00: The crypto space is forever interesting.
- 3:40SPEAKER_00: And I think there's it's just so rapidly evolving, like even with like deployment of products and trying to keep pace with you know their competitors, creating increased interoperability and partnerships, just create continues to drive and put pressure on having strong processes for DPAs and a lot of the core compliance facets around you know, conducting certain types of assessments and the like, making sure that those are all in place.
- 4:05SPEAKER_00: And there's a greater sort of call for those and ability to be have transparency around being able to see like the DPIA and the LIA, especially when we're seeing during MA work or due diligence, like the counterparties are really asking for this stuff.
- 4:19SPEAKER_00: So whereas maybe when this a few years ago and would have been this a paperwork exercise, memodophile, and we're good, what's the worst that can happen?
- 4:27SPEAKER_00: We're seeing in these due diligence phases the counterparties asking, hey, can we see that transfer impact assessment?
- 4:32SPEAKER_00: Can we see the DPIA?
- 4:34SPEAKER_00: Can we really make sure that what you're saying is actually in place?
- 4:38SPEAKER_02: Is there a common mistake that you might see from an in-house counsel that like a company hiring you as a fractional counsel?
- 4:45SPEAKER_02: What's an advantage to something like that?
- 4:47SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there's necessarily a mistake.
- 4:49SPEAKER_00: I do think that's hard for companies to realize how important privacy is until there's like some urgent deadlines, right?
- 4:54SPEAKER_00: And that's sort of when they're activating and looking for that support.
- 4:58SPEAKER_00: I think that's natural, just given resource constraints constraints right now in today's market.
- 5:02SPEAKER_00: But it's like one privacy, compliance as always will remain this sort of journey, right?
- 5:09SPEAKER_00: And so it's not like you are going to reach 100% compliance overnight.
- 5:15SPEAKER_00: There's sort of this path that you have to be on.
- 5:18SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when companies come in sort of at the 11th hour, you know, they're trying to get something done and privacy is currently a blocker, right?
- 5:26SPEAKER_00: You know, they don't have that roadmap, nor do they have the time for that that pat that journey to even start meaningfully, right?
- 5:34SPEAKER_00: And so it's almost like we found ourselves in this reactive space of like, what can we do in the short term to do risk?
- 5:40SPEAKER_00: And then what do we continue to chart the course for now?
- 5:42SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's necessarily a mistake or just the way that the world spins, but yeah, um, you know, oftentimes that's what happens.
- 5:50SPEAKER_00: And so I will come in and help them kind of think through meaningfully what are the steps here and what are the things we can put in place so we can offset some of this burden through either automation, repeatable processes, or for example, the DPF certification, things like that, right?
- 6:05SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 6:06SPEAKER_02: Now I saw that uh pretty exciting news.
- 6:09SPEAKER_02: I saw that you relaunched your new website.
- 6:11SPEAKER_02: It looks great.
- 6:13SPEAKER_01: There you go.
- 6:14SPEAKER_02: What did you want people to get in the first 10 seconds of looking at that site?
- 6:18SPEAKER_02: What's what's the message?
- 6:20SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what?
- 6:20SPEAKER_00: That's so funny because I always say when I was building this website, I was like, all I want to do is for people to look at my website and be like, I could have a terrible cup of coffee, maybe, or maybe a really good cup of coffee, not not made by me.
- 6:33SPEAKER_00: We could sit at a coffee shop, have a great cup of coffee and a pastry, and get really good privacy advice at the same time.
- 6:40SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 6:40SPEAKER_00: I I really valued being sort of approachable and collegial.
- 6:45SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted that to come across in my website, and I think it really does now.
- 6:49SPEAKER_00: And I really do think you get that sense of not just another lawyer doing privacy work, but rather a sense of my personality and and who I am and and level and caliber of work I'm bringing in.
- 6:59SPEAKER_02: And you mentioned a lot of your clients have been fintech, I believe.
- 7:02SPEAKER_02: Who would you say you're built for mostly?
- 7:04SPEAKER_02: Uh it seems like you're pretty versatile, but do you have like a niche kind of area that you like to stay in?
- 7:10SPEAKER_00: It's it's gonna be emerging tech and it's gonna be fintechs.
- 7:13SPEAKER_00: I mean, my experience at Coinbase is just kind of you know lends itself so neatly to me to continue to work and operate in that space.
- 7:20SPEAKER_00: Um the majority of my clients tend to be in that space, and then the remainder are again, just based on my experiences in this emerging tech, really unsettled area of the law.
- 7:29SPEAKER_00: I spend a lot of time with those types of clients.
- 7:32SPEAKER_00: I have, you know, various clients that are just, you know, one-offs that are in like, you know, retail or sports and entertainment, and they're fun and they give a little bit of diversity.
- 7:41SPEAKER_00: So I'll never say no.
- 7:43SPEAKER_00: But sort of where I bring the most value is sort of in those areas.
- 7:47SPEAKER_02: And uh for anyone that wants to see the new website, it is tamarack.solutions, uh, if you want to check it out.
- 7:54SPEAKER_02: Let's go into our next section because AI is obviously everywhere, everything.
- 7:59SPEAKER_02: I don't think there's not a newsline of AI every single day.
- 8:02SPEAKER_02: Uh, but these last few months have been pretty crazy.
- 8:05SPEAKER_02: So obviously we were talking about Muse earlier.
- 8:07SPEAKER_02: Um, let's get a little bit deeper into that.
- 8:09SPEAKER_02: So Muse remembers what it learned even when you delete the conversation.
- 8:13SPEAKER_02: If you were advising Meta at launch, what's the first thing you'd probably flag with that?
- 8:18SPEAKER_00: Like, don't?
- 8:18SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe don't do it.
- 8:21SPEAKER_00: You know, so much of this technology will turn on consumer trust, right?
- 8:26SPEAKER_00: Like this is such innovative and new stuff.
- 8:29SPEAKER_00: But in order to retain your customers, you have to be able to have their trust.
- 8:35SPEAKER_00: And if you say you're going to do something, or if you're giving establishing a functionality that would indicate that you're doing something, it kind of has to do that, right?
- 8:47SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 8:48SPEAKER_00: And so, for example, I think in like Chat GPT, there's a difference between archiving and deleting, right?
- 8:53SPEAKER_00: And as you like right-click and choose one of those options, it's very clear to it's very clear what's happening.
- 8:59SPEAKER_00: Like if I decide to archive something, it's like, this will not be deleted, this will be archived.
- 9:03SPEAKER_00: Like you, this may still be like learned on or whatever.
- 9:08SPEAKER_00: Whereas, you know, that that that's clear to me, right?
- 9:11SPEAKER_00: Like that's important to have that sort of distinction.
- 9:13SPEAKER_00: Whereas if I delete something, it's gone.
- 9:15SPEAKER_00: Like, you can't recover this, it is gone forever.
- 9:17SPEAKER_00: We can't remember it, right?
- 9:19SPEAKER_00: Like it's very clear.
- 9:20SPEAKER_00: And so here it's kind of one of those things where if you're gonna say it's something, then you kind of have to do it.
- 9:26SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I mean, I've always been the person to think like anything that you put online or in someone's product, there's no way that it actually gets deleted if it's deleted.
- 9:37SPEAKER_02: But it makes me think like when you're signing up for these programs or these, you know, apps like Muse, there's probably a privacy policy that pops up that you have to read and accept.
- 9:46SPEAKER_02: But they never give you an option to decline and still use the product.
- 9:50SPEAKER_02: Like if you decline it, you can't use it, right?
- 9:52SPEAKER_00: Is that that's pretty standard.
- 9:54SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, I wonder, I wonder why there isn't more it's because they probably obviously have a need for what they're you're consenting to.
- 10:01SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and if you refuse to consent or you don't provide a certain level of access, are you now just asking for a completely different product and service that they're just not willing to offer?
- 10:11SPEAKER_00: There's a cost consideration here as well.
- 10:14SPEAKER_00: And like there is some pressure of like if you really want it, you'll just agree, right?
- 10:18SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of been the name of the game for a long time now.
- 10:22SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 10:23SPEAKER_02: How do you feel about that though?
- 10:24SPEAKER_02: Is that the right way?
- 10:25SPEAKER_02: Should is that fair to the consumer, I guess, that it matters.
- 10:29SPEAKER_00: Is this product like critically necessary to anybody's life?
- 10:32SPEAKER_00: Like to me, it's like to me, it's to some people may provide significant value, and to others, none.
- 10:39SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 10:39SPEAKER_00: It is a choice, and there's other ways to drive towards efficiency in your life.
- 10:44SPEAKER_00: If I'm not comfortable, and I mean, this is the logic that I mean, and I'm a lawyer, so of course this is how I'm gonna think about it.
- 10:50SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, if I'm not comfortable, I'm just simply not going to use it.
- 10:53SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that any level of notice, like what can get me comfortable?
- 10:58SPEAKER_00: What would get you or me comfortable using something like Muse?
- 11:02SPEAKER_00: Is there anything, you know, other than like ripping it down to like the most basic product, which they don't, they're not, they're not creating that, right?
- 11:10SPEAKER_00: They're creating something that has a unique market position with unique abilities to provide value to people through its ability to just hone and process information, right?
- 11:21SPEAKER_00: So we got we got good old Google for that, right?
- 11:25SPEAKER_02: That's true.
- 11:26SPEAKER_02: If you're signing up for something like Muse, what's something that you should like check for before connecting your account?
- 11:32SPEAKER_00: Like what's something that we're so interesting you asked this because I don't know if that's the right question, or rather the question is anytime you're interacting with technology, new technology, particularly, and I can take an even sillier example here.
- 11:43SPEAKER_00: Why don't we pause, right?
- 11:45SPEAKER_00: There's early adopters, there's late adopters, and there's like kind of everything in between, right?
- 11:49SPEAKER_00: So, for example, there was this um like Dyson came out with this really cool toothbrush.
- 11:52SPEAKER_00: It's like 500 bucks.
- 11:54SPEAKER_00: They have a toothbrush?
- 11:56SPEAKER_00: It is insane.
- 11:56SPEAKER_00: And I mean, they have all sorts of stuff, right?
- 11:58SPEAKER_00: They have the vacuums, they have like these beautiful hairdryers that I use.
- 12:02SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 12:02SPEAKER_00: And I love a Dyson product, don't get me wrong.
- 12:05SPEAKER_00: But this this toothbrush came out, it's supposed to be like this amazing toothbrush.
- 12:09SPEAKER_00: It's 500 bucks and it's like powered by AI, like everything today.
- 12:12SPEAKER_00: And it has like a camera, so you can really, really see what's going on.
- 12:16SPEAKER_00: And it came out, and I was like all in.
- 12:17SPEAKER_00: I was like, I love Dyson, let's do this.
- 12:19SPEAKER_02: But I want to see the inside of my teeth.
- 12:22unknown: Yes.
- 12:22SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, why not?
- 12:24SPEAKER_00: And so I was like looking at it, it sells out in like, you know, a few hours.
- 12:27SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, but let's wait, like, let's see.
- 12:29SPEAKER_00: I'm very curious about sort of the claims and like forget about privacy, just even just like the product, just like what the feedback on the product is, like out in the wild now, because things can test really well internally, but there's yeah, so many different variables that just need to or that are at play.
- 12:46SPEAKER_00: And so they started showing like there's a number of different issues, like there's water getting to the battery pack and like all these different things.
- 12:52SPEAKER_00: And so they pull back a little bit and kind of revisit like the product and like make some enhancements, right?
- 12:58SPEAKER_00: This is normal, right?
- 12:59SPEAKER_00: Like we're always gonna see this level of market feedback and then uh like reiteration on the product.
- 13:04SPEAKER_00: If I was if somebody was asking me to sign up, that's what I would say.
- 13:07SPEAKER_00: I would say, wait, because look, we waited two weeks, and what are we seeing about Mews, right?
- 13:10SPEAKER_00: There's numerous articles around how the technology's working and whether it's doing what's intended to do.
- 13:15SPEAKER_00: You want that information.
- 13:17SPEAKER_00: That is not information one or two people can get just find track like drafting on their own or testing on their own.
- 13:23SPEAKER_00: It comes from sort of that first go.
- 13:25SPEAKER_00: And so let other people have that first shot and find those things and have them be buggy, but give it a moment before you like you do not need to be the first adopter of a new technology.
- 13:34SPEAKER_00: You really don't.
- 13:35SPEAKER_00: You can wait a few moments and and kind of evaluate after seeing what the feedback of whether this really makes sense for you to use or not.
- 13:43SPEAKER_00: And there's other there's other competitors.
- 13:46SPEAKER_02: That's true.
- 13:47SPEAKER_02: Mic drop, that's a great answer.
- 13:49SPEAKER_02: It's a great way to look at it because people do love to rush into things when they're brand new.
- 13:53SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's good to just take a step back and see what other people do in the case.
- 13:58SPEAKER_00: I mean, well, I was like, I mean, I don't know.
- 14:00SPEAKER_00: I I have now confirmed that you're younger than me, but you know, when we're in high school, nobody know nobody needs to know this on air.
- 14:06SPEAKER_00: When we're in like high school and college, you know, the race to always have the newest iPhone was a thing, right?
- 14:12SPEAKER_00: It was always get the new phone, always get the new phone.
- 14:15SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, are we not past this, right?
- 14:18SPEAKER_00: Because like some of those phones were shitty and you actually didn't want it in the end, right?
- 14:21SPEAKER_01: It's true.
- 14:22SPEAKER_00: And so that's where I'm like, we don't need to have the shiniest, newest thing every time.
- 14:26SPEAKER_02: So well, especially because like it comes out one, it comes out every year.
- 14:30SPEAKER_02: So it's I feel like it's too it's too frequent for it to have good enough changes to be like, I need this every year for a new iPhone.
- 14:39SPEAKER_00: Yeah, see, and that's what happens.
- 14:40SPEAKER_00: I need to do too do too many drops.
- 14:43SPEAKER_02: It's true.
- 14:43SPEAKER_02: Let's move into some of the regulation stuff.
- 14:46SPEAKER_02: The White House wants federal preemption of state AI laws.
- 14:50SPEAKER_02: That's a great one.
- 14:52SPEAKER_02: Good or bad for privacy prop professionals.
- 14:55SPEAKER_02: What's your opinion?
- 14:56SPEAKER_00: CCPA passed, right?
- 14:58SPEAKER_00: And then there was this moment in time where there was only CCPA and conversations around preemption for privacy laws of like we need a federal privacy law so that we don't get this patchwork of laws across the US.
- 15:12SPEAKER_00: Like this is going to be the worst scenario possible.
- 15:15SPEAKER_00: We must prevent this.
- 15:17SPEAKER_02: Fast forward, and we that's what we have.
- 15:19SPEAKER_00: I don't know how we got here.
- 15:21SPEAKER_00: And so instant breach notification, right?
- 15:23SPEAKER_00: Like that was like uh that was like the we were supposed to learn our lesson from this, from the fact that it is so expensive to do breach notification now because it is state by state by state, and no amount of AI is going to stop like stop any company from having to pay lawyers thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to do these disclosures.
- 15:43SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm sorry, you're going to still need lawyers to do this stuff.
- 15:46SPEAKER_00: And it is what it is, right?
- 15:48SPEAKER_00: But we're kind of in that same patchwork regime now for privacy.
- 15:53SPEAKER_00: I do not, I mean, I'm a bit pessimistic.
- 15:55SPEAKER_00: Yes, of course, AI is the hot topic right now.
- 15:58SPEAKER_00: Do I expect there to be federal preemption of state AI laws?
- 16:02SPEAKER_00: Not if they can't get it out the door fast enough, right?
- 16:05SPEAKER_00: Like if a state passes a law regulating or managing or limiting AI to any degree, preemption conversations are going to be very, very difficult.
- 16:14SPEAKER_00: And there's been calls for the past couple of years on this.
- 16:16SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 16:17SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot of different interested parties in the mix, right?
- 16:20SPEAKER_00: And so it makes it very difficult to understand you know what direction to go, I think, especially for the lawmakers.
- 16:28SPEAKER_00: Uh but some directions better than none.
- 16:33SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 16:33SPEAKER_02: That's true.
- 16:34SPEAKER_02: Do you have any more any more thoughts on on that topic before I go on to the next one?
- 16:39SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I think we hear a lot of calls now from like the bigwigs in AI, like Sam Altman and others saying, like, we're scared of this technology, like someone regulate us.
- 16:51SPEAKER_00: And I think two things there.
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: Like, one, like, that is just so funny.
- 16:55SPEAKER_00: And then two, like, is that not like the canary in the mind?
- 17:00SPEAKER_00: So regardless.
- 17:01SPEAKER_02: Are you referring?
- 17:02SPEAKER_02: Well, first of all, are you referencing is this in reference to the one uh open AI guy?
- 17:07SPEAKER_02: He was like 28 and he like went on CNN and talked about how we should like that's like a 10% that AI will kill all humans.
- 17:16SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, that was great.
- 17:17SPEAKER_00: But I even Sam Altman has gone like in front of various bodies and said this as well, right?
- 17:22SPEAKER_00: Like there needs to be some regulation.
- 17:24SPEAKER_00: And I I think that's right, right?
- 17:26SPEAKER_00: And my question is like, these are interested parties saying it, right?
- 17:29SPEAKER_00: And they're driving that conversation, but we do need the lawmakers that represent the people to really take a stand here and really step in and say, like, this is what we think it needs to be.
- 17:38SPEAKER_00: However, you know, lobbying really moves a lot of a lot of things.
- 17:42SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's it's a very difficult and unclear sort of situation, but we just have to wait and see what happens.
- 17:51SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 17:51SPEAKER_02: It is interesting to see someone like Sam make a comment like, um, you know, we're gonna have to see bad things happen for these these AI products to get to where we want them to go.
- 18:03SPEAKER_02: But we definitely need guardrails because everything else has guardrails.
- 18:06SPEAKER_02: Why shouldn't this like incredible technology that is a tool?
- 18:12SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
- 18:12SPEAKER_02: Well, what about okay?
- 18:13SPEAKER_02: So speaking about Sam Alton, uh, OpenAI co-wrote California ballot measure regulating AI chatbots for kids.
- 18:21SPEAKER_02: This is a big I mean I mean I I'm all about kids' safety and everything.
- 18:24SPEAKER_02: So when the company being regulated writes the rules, who does that actually protect?
- 18:30SPEAKER_02: I think it's obviously the company.
- 18:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think there's two things here.
- 18:35SPEAKER_00: Like naturally, you know, they're they're they're writing from a place of their own interest for sure, but they're also writing from a place of knowledge, right?
- 18:42SPEAKER_00: Like they know what these products can do and currently do.
- 18:47SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I would rather have open AI at the table engaging with regulators in a meaningful and productive way than them stonewalling it.
- 18:56SPEAKER_00: And the, I mean, this is California and the lawmakers or the the folks writing the ballot measure simply writing something that's so conservative that nobody's gonna be able to come to the table for it, right?
- 19:09SPEAKER_00: Like this is at least a lesson learned from CCPA, right?
- 19:13SPEAKER_00: Where a lot of the larger companies were kind of rallying against it because it was a ballot measure, I think, initially, right?
- 19:17SPEAKER_00: Like, isn't that and so it came in and you know there's a lot of force against it.
- 19:23SPEAKER_00: Like, this is a terrible idea, it's gonna destroy the tech industry, they're gonna flee California, all this stuff.
- 19:29SPEAKER_00: But this at least is collaborative, right?
- 19:30SPEAKER_00: And it's start, it's better than nothing.
- 19:33SPEAKER_00: I choose to see the good in this one, and it's a noble cause.
- 19:36SPEAKER_00: At least we're starting with some sort of regulation conversation.
- 19:39SPEAKER_00: I think we're gonna see a lot more meaningful conversations around AI agents.
- 19:43SPEAKER_00: I think Muse coming to market, meta muse coming to market was really starting those conversations where they've really been kind of, I think, on the periphery.
- 19:51SPEAKER_00: Like they haven't been widely adopted.
- 19:53SPEAKER_00: Like we hear these conversations of people like, oh, I have an agent, whatever.
- 19:56SPEAKER_00: And when you talk to them, they're like, it's engineers, it's product managers, it's people in tech, right?
- 20:00SPEAKER_00: That we are, you know, the folks in tech are always driving towards efficiency and this type of technology allows for it in some ways.
- 20:06SPEAKER_00: Um, but they're also in limited use cases.
- 20:08SPEAKER_00: Whereas meta use has really kind of opened the box here, right?
- 20:11SPEAKER_00: Of like this can really enhance and allow for a greater number of use cases from purchasing to just keeping on top of things to filling out field trip forms, whatever.
- 20:23SPEAKER_00: I think my commentary here is twofold.
- 20:25SPEAKER_00: Like, one is like where's the humanity left in our human uh lives?
- 20:30SPEAKER_00: Like, what is it that we cannot fill out the field trip form for our children?
- 20:35SPEAKER_00: Right?
- 20:35SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, I don't know.
- 20:37SPEAKER_00: That there's there's a little bit of that where I'm just like, this is just a little bit crazy.
- 20:41SPEAKER_00: And these are just like things that's like, are we just driving towards efficiency for the sake of efficiency?
- 20:46SPEAKER_00: At what point are we just saving time for the sake of saving time?
- 20:48SPEAKER_00: And what are we saving time for if not these things?
- 20:52SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 20:52SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 20:53SPEAKER_00: I do think that like personal AI agents, these sort of AI agents that like I've seen them used at the companies I I work with as well.
- 21:01SPEAKER_00: And I think they're great in in a business context.
- 21:04SPEAKER_00: I think they do save a lot of time.
- 21:05SPEAKER_00: I think they're buggy.
- 21:06SPEAKER_00: I think they need a lot of c customization and calibration to do what you want them to do.
- 21:11SPEAKER_00: But in my personal life, you know, like I said, like I need to buy a hat one day and I used it.
- 21:15SPEAKER_00: And I'm purely I'm not meta mused.
- 21:17SPEAKER_00: I was using a different AI agent that I actually really like.
- 21:20SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I I think instinct is really good right now.
- 21:23SPEAKER_00: One, you're not just giving more data into the meta universe.
- 21:27SPEAKER_00: So there's that, right?
- 21:29SPEAKER_00: And I think there's this is a company that is trying to, I mean, the founder and those that kind of back it, I think, are trying to meaningfully develop this with like security and privacy in mind.
- 21:41SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's like I said, this is just I'm just an ordinary user, but based on my own use of it, I find it, you know, it's it's not bad, right?
- 21:50SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's a lot of like security features that are kind of built into it by design that I find very useful and nice.
- 21:56SPEAKER_00: And you can like connect and disconnect various accounts as you wish.
- 21:59SPEAKER_00: Like It's very kind of user-friendly in that way.
- 22:02SPEAKER_00: I don't have, I mean, and right now because they're not part of that ecosystem, I don't have this concern of like what is going to happen to my data.
- 22:10SPEAKER_00: I actually asked it that question and it's like, well, it's only used for your purposes here.
- 22:15SPEAKER_00: It's like gated to your sort of local instance.
- 22:17SPEAKER_00: And so that's also very nice to think about, right?
- 22:20SPEAKER_00: Whereas even if Meta makes those assurances, it's so hard to believe.
- 22:23SPEAKER_00: And also the news coming out would also have you believe that maybe that's not the case, right?
- 22:28SPEAKER_00: I think there's a place for these types of technologies.
- 22:30SPEAKER_00: I think we're gonna see a lot more conversation around, you know, personal AI agents, like things like GrockBot are also advancing further.
- 22:38SPEAKER_00: MetaMuse naturally will get better with the feedback.
- 22:40SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious to see sort of like what the market reaction is, what the sort of fallout is, how does this impact children?
- 22:47SPEAKER_00: How does this impact you know marginalized communities?
- 22:50SPEAKER_00: Like that is really where we see sort of privacy at play here.
- 22:53SPEAKER_00: Um, it'll also be very interesting to see how the European market responds to this stuff because they always have a response to this type of stuff.
- 22:59SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, especially since they're the ones that actually set the best example when it comes to a privacy regulation.
- 23:06SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that EDPB, so before MetaMuse launched, uh there was a lot more conversation going on around the meta glasses.
- 23:14SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 23:16SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you were talking about this.
- 23:17SPEAKER_00: What what and EDPB issued like uh some sort of statement around essentially that the recording needs to be very obvious.
- 23:25SPEAKER_00: Like there needs to be some sort of indication that recording is occurring.
- 23:28SPEAKER_00: Like you can't just have these glasses on and there's no indication.
- 23:31SPEAKER_00: And so it's starting to kind of give you an idea that you know, at least, you know, the European regulators are really kind of considering this and thinking about this and starting to consider like what are the expectations around product design for camera microphone-based wearables, right?
- 23:51SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 23:51SPEAKER_00: The privacy concerns are so obvious with technology like that, right?
- 23:55SPEAKER_00: Like the um, this is technology that can easily be used for for buying and surveillance.
- 24:01SPEAKER_00: And I think such an obvious area for the EDPB to weigh in.
- 24:04SPEAKER_00: And I think it was only actually it was just yesterday that they adopted the statement and they published this expert report on like how smart glasses are used for recording and surveillance, and essentially said that uh neither device maker nor app providers can pass its controller obligations to users.
- 24:21SPEAKER_00: It can't be like, well, we've given you these glasses and now you're responsible for the data you collect.
- 24:26SPEAKER_00: But rather, like the product design has to be done in a meaningful way that is, you know, privacy aware.
- 24:33SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 24:33SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious to see what the response is to that.
- 24:36SPEAKER_02: Me too.
- 24:37SPEAKER_02: And I was just thinking about it because I'm such a, I don't know, goofball, but it is funny to me that like you see all these movies and like spy things where everything's like tiny, tiny thing for to spy on people and like the tiniest cameras that are not obvious.
- 24:51SPEAKER_02: And then you come out with these glasses that have cameras in them, and they're obviously not real.
- 24:55SPEAKER_02: Like you can tell when someone's wearing these, you know, camera glasses because they're they're such thick frames.
- 25:02SPEAKER_02: Right now, those glasses don't have like a blinking light or indicating that it's actually recording, and it's obviously for consent of everybody around them.
- 25:10SPEAKER_02: But if they're in a public place, does that matter?
- 25:13SPEAKER_02: I wonder.
- 25:14SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think it does.
- 25:15SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, yeah, that that's where we're really telling the lines, right?
- 25:19SPEAKER_00: Because it's like, okay, if you're in somebody's background of somebody's photo, you know, whatever.
- 25:22SPEAKER_00: But like I think this, or like if government is has cameras up, they still require have to put some level of notice in place.
- 25:29SPEAKER_00: We see those all over Europe.
- 25:30SPEAKER_00: But here it's like if there's like a deliberate recording in public of people without their consent, like I don't know, it's just makes feels creepy, right?
- 25:40SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it does.
- 25:41SPEAKER_00: And so that's where I totally respect, you know, the EDPV's position on this one.
- 25:47SPEAKER_00: But speaking of movies, going back to your movie thing, I do sometimes feel like Tony Stark talking to Jarvis when I'm like a personal AI agent, because you know, instinct is iMessage and you can send an audio notes.
- 25:58SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm like, hey, what do I got on my calendar today?
- 26:02SPEAKER_00: And it's like, great question.
- 26:04SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, this is fantastic.
- 26:05SPEAKER_00: Or they'll like nudge me, right?
- 26:07SPEAKER_00: Like it'll be like, Sonny, yeah, it's 1055.
- 26:09SPEAKER_00: You have a meeting in five minutes.
- 26:10SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, awesome.
- 26:12SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know.
- 26:13SPEAKER_00: I mean, I do feel kind of it is very futuristic.
- 26:16SPEAKER_00: There is some like, I don't know, I'm like, this feels cool.
- 26:20SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 26:20SPEAKER_00: But I'm not it I would be remiss if I wasn't somewhat suspicious of it as well.
- 26:24SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 26:24SPEAKER_00: So I think it'd be really cool, but also you you'd want it to work as work well.
- 26:29SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
- 26:30SPEAKER_00: And if you have not seen on Netflix right now, Audacity, it is freaking hilarious.
- 26:37SPEAKER_02: Okay.
- 26:38SPEAKER_00: Like, um, this is not an entirely a spoiler, but like halfway through the show, like this founder found like starts his own company and it's called Pinata, which is privacy is not a thing anymore.
- 26:50SPEAKER_00: There's an entire plot line on privacy.
- 26:53SPEAKER_00: And if that is not reason enough to watch the show, like I don't know what else to tell you.
- 26:57SPEAKER_00: Like it is just it's called what?
- 26:58SPEAKER_00: It's called Audacity.
- 27:00SPEAKER_02: Audacity.
- 27:00SPEAKER_02: Okay.
- 27:01SPEAKER_00: And it is like I think it's from it is on AMC originally or something, but it's just like it is a very, I think for privacy professionals as well, like it's obviously satire, but it is just so funny to see because sometimes I'm like, I feel like I've I've lived moments of this where people are like, it's not even a thing.
- 27:19SPEAKER_00: Like, who cares about privacy?
- 27:20SPEAKER_00: Like, does it like you know, when I go to dinner parties and I like which I'm just kind of like, please don't say to privacy professionals at dinner parties, do not be like privacy is not a thing anymore, right?
- 27:28SPEAKER_00: Like you're telling me my livelihood is not a livelihood, right?
- 27:31SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know why people think like feel like they can say that about privacy.
- 27:35SPEAKER_00: So that's just just free advice to anybody listening.
- 27:38SPEAKER_00: But it's just such a funny thing because we've all lived through some of those questions in like a less, you know, maybe not as high stakes as the show makes it, but it's it's close to home in a very funny way.
- 27:48SPEAKER_02: So watch it.
- 27:51SPEAKER_02: Um, all right.
- 27:51SPEAKER_02: So before we wrap it up, I just want to touch a little bit on on women in privacy.
- 27:56SPEAKER_02: Uh what uh well for also future uh shout out, we're putting together a woman in privacy uh event that I'm really excited for.
- 28:05SPEAKER_02: We are that we're gonna be shooting before the end of this year and releasing kind of end of the year thing.
- 28:10SPEAKER_02: So if anyone listening, you know any good uh women in privacy, shoot them our way.
- 28:14SPEAKER_02: Um we're looking for some people to add to that show.
- 28:17SPEAKER_02: But anyways, I think we might have touched on this a long time ago when we first met, but uh maybe the listeners don't really know.
- 28:24SPEAKER_02: How how did you end up working in privacy?
- 28:27SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I've always really been concerned around like sort of civil rights matters just at large, and that's some sort of where my interests were when I was in law school.
- 28:36SPEAKER_00: Um and then there's this big sort of there's this lawsuit against the NMIPD around surveillance of Muslim communities.
- 28:43SPEAKER_00: And I remember when that case when when sort of that news hit around the surveillance issues, and the lawsuit kind of quickly followed, and I was part of that lawsuit that was brought forward by by this firm that I was um clerking at at the time.
- 28:55SPEAKER_00: And I just remember that being such an interesting intersection of just like this expectation of privacy in our communities and law enforcement and minorities and civil rights and things like that.
- 29:06SPEAKER_00: And I found it so fascinating.
- 29:08SPEAKER_00: And at that time, I didn't know if it was realistic for me to pursue that as like a full-time career.
- 29:14SPEAKER_00: But I, as I started meeting other folks that were further ahead in their legal careers, I started meeting privacy professionals.
- 29:20SPEAKER_00: These are lawyers that were doing privacy, and this is pre-GDPR, pre-20, you know, prior to 2018, but they were still very much so making making a way for themselves.
- 29:29SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, the GDPR, you know, it just became very, very clear to me that I could really kind of follow my passion here in terms of my legal interests.
- 29:37SPEAKER_00: I was lucky to be able to find an area that deeply interested me, both academically, personally, and professionally, and kind of marry that with my career.
- 29:47SPEAKER_00: And it's just been phenomenal.
- 29:49SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've been able to do so many interesting things.
- 29:51SPEAKER_00: It's been over 10 years, and I've just been able to work at so many different places.
- 29:54SPEAKER_00: And now, you know, having my own firm has just been, I mean, for me, such a treat.
- 30:01SPEAKER_00: Like I feel honored that cut so many companies trust me and and and want to work with me.
- 30:06SPEAKER_00: And likewise, I've I feel like there's so much that I have to offer and continue to contend with because privacy continues to evolve as technology continues to evolve, right?
- 30:15SPEAKER_00: And so notions of privacy are continuously challenged as well as technology moves.
- 30:20SPEAKER_00: And so I find that every day the questions become more and more interesting and our answers are continuously evolving.
- 30:27SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a cool little world uh if you're in the privacy world.
- 30:31SPEAKER_02: It's and it's it's been growing and growing, of course.
- 30:34SPEAKER_02: And there's I think what stands out with you from my perspective on the outside when I first met you is just that you seem very authentic and you're not like, I don't know, you don't seem too much of like a lawyer, I guess.
- 30:46SPEAKER_02: I think having some different personalities like yourself, like someone like Ron De Asus, if if people should definitely know who that is.
- 30:54SPEAKER_00: The OG primacy influencer.
- 30:56SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 30:57SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't even like the influencer title.
- 30:59SPEAKER_02: It's not really that.
- 31:00SPEAKER_00: He's just made it so much more relevant and quicker.
- 31:04SPEAKER_00: And I don't know.
- 31:06SPEAKER_00: We we can be really great at what we do.
- 31:09SPEAKER_00: I've said this time too.
- 31:10SPEAKER_00: We can be really great practitioners and still, you know, find ways.
- 31:14SPEAKER_00: I think part of that is finding ways to communicate.
- 31:16SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 31:18SPEAKER_00: You know, a compelling way.
- 31:20SPEAKER_02: What uh what's different about being a woman in privacy versus cybersecurity?
- 31:24SPEAKER_02: Have you come across working in cybersecurity at all?
- 31:26SPEAKER_00: So I do work in both privacy and cyber.
- 31:28SPEAKER_02: Okay.
- 31:29SPEAKER_00: And I my clients span both legal and security, so CISOs and CLOs and everything in between.
- 31:35SPEAKER_00: I think, and I I consistently say this throughout my career, which is in order to be a good privacy professional, you have to have deep technical understanding of data protection controls.
- 31:46SPEAKER_00: And that naturally kind of segues you into being a good cyber attorney.
- 31:51SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, obviously things like instant response are pretty typical sort of areas where we discuss, but also evaluation of security protocols and controls when we are looking at the deployment or development of new technologies is something that I think privacy professionals, privacy lawyers should have a seat at the table.
- 32:09SPEAKER_00: I'm a privacy cyber attorney, right?
- 32:11SPEAKER_00: There needs to be an attorney at the table that's really kind of aligning against user expectations and consumer trust and alignment to regulatory, both existing requirements and those that are sort of kind of evolving or kind of emerging as well, right?
- 32:24SPEAKER_00: And so to me, I don't distinguish in my own practice.
- 32:28SPEAKER_00: I always arrive at the expectation that I'll be involved in both privacy and cyber matters from a legal perspective or operational for that matter, um, where necessary.
- 32:37SPEAKER_00: I think I think being a woman in cyber, being a woman in privacy is just generally uh challenging as it tends to be.
- 32:44SPEAKER_00: Just, you know, there's always some sort of implicit biases at play, or like, do these people really know?
- 32:49SPEAKER_00: And then if you're a lawyer, there's this healthy dose of skepticism from security professions of like, do they even get it?
- 32:54SPEAKER_00: And I think that's fair, right?
- 32:56SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of lawyers don't have the technical sort of sensibility of like how this stuff works.
- 33:03SPEAKER_00: But the best thing you can do for yourself is to arrive at the table informed, right?
- 33:07SPEAKER_00: Show up knowing the basics so that they don't have to start by holding your hand and then get right into it and they can trust you to be a collaborative and meaningful partner in advancing whatever initiatives are in place.
- 33:21SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 33:22SPEAKER_02: I think it's kind of like maybe like peanut butter and jelly, it's almost like we've since I've been saying this, and Gabe has been saying this on the show for ever since we started.
- 33:30SPEAKER_02: It's like you can have security without privacy, but you can't have privacy without security.
- 33:35unknown: Yeah.
- 33:36SPEAKER_02: So it's like, I mean, knowing having both sides of that, I feel like is definitely an advantage to your clients, no doubt.
- 33:44SPEAKER_02: One last one before actually, this is a fun one for me.
- 33:46SPEAKER_02: I'm just throwing it out there.
- 33:47SPEAKER_02: What would you say is your superpower as a human being?
- 33:51SPEAKER_02: As like if someone were to hire Sonia, like what's your superpower that you're just just that you absolutely am confident in?
- 34:00SPEAKER_00: I think there's two.
- 34:01SPEAKER_00: One is like I am always having more fun doing privacy work than anything else.
- 34:06SPEAKER_00: I'm always just having the best time ever.
- 34:09SPEAKER_00: Even with like I think the other day one of my clients sent me this question, and I think we we were on the phone and we were we just started laughing.
- 34:16SPEAKER_00: And I was like, the fact that we can just sit here and laugh through this like really painful legal issue.
- 34:22SPEAKER_00: I mean, what else are you gonna do?
- 34:24SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know.
- 34:25SPEAKER_00: I'm always having fun.
- 34:26SPEAKER_00: I think that's what makes working with me great.
- 34:29SPEAKER_00: Um we're gonna get the work done.
- 34:31SPEAKER_00: We might as well smile.
- 34:32SPEAKER_00: Um, and the other one is I'm really good at translating complex, particularly privacy work, but just sort of complex legal concepts into meaningful strategic objectives.
- 34:44SPEAKER_00: And that lands well with sort of outside legal and with boards and with founders and with leadership.
- 34:50SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a really important skill and something that I like to help support my clients through as well.
- 34:55unknown: Sure.
- 34:56SPEAKER_02: Do you think imposter syndrome is pretty relevant in your space or just you personally, or do you think a lot of lawyers and privacy kind of deal with that?
- 35:06SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's I think a lot of people deal with it for sure.
- 35:09SPEAKER_00: And I think that I mean, for me, you know, one of the things the feedback I've been getting, I I get often is, you know, I have my own law firm now and I have staff and people that work for me.
- 35:20SPEAKER_00: And people will always often be like, You look, you seem so invaluable or you seem so confident.
- 35:26SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what else is there to be?
- 35:30SPEAKER_02: It's a choice, yeah.
- 35:32SPEAKER_00: But I know there are still, I would I'd be lying if I didn't say that like once a quarter, I'm just kind of like, I pick my head up and I'm like, what are we doing here?
- 35:39SPEAKER_00: Like, what am I doing?
- 35:40SPEAKER_00: Like, is this it, is this what I am I not that am I good enough, but is this is this what I'm meant to be doing, or is this really and that's normal, right?
- 35:49SPEAKER_00: Like it's so normal to have those thoughts and you it's a choice, you can choose to dwell on them or you can choose to move on.
- 35:56SPEAKER_00: Um, and I always try to you have to have a good support system as well.
- 36:00SPEAKER_00: So my husband always reminds me, like, well, how can you say that?
- 36:03SPEAKER_00: Like, look at what you're doing, look at what you're building.
- 36:04SPEAKER_00: And I'm like so excited by what I'm building at Tamarack Solutions and what I'm able to offer.
- 36:10SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited for the future for it.
- 36:12SPEAKER_00: And so I just always have to try to remember that you know, the best is yet to come.
- 36:16SPEAKER_02: It's true, it is a choice, and I think that you have the right mindset.
- 36:20SPEAKER_02: Um, why would you want to be a miserable person dealing with all these long legal documents and just like if you're miserable reading them, you're gonna just be miserable all the time.
- 36:30SPEAKER_02: So why not be happy and like not take yourself so seriously?
- 36:35SPEAKER_02: And I think people need to realize that just anything that you're doing.
- 36:38SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
- 36:39SPEAKER_02: So I I love that.
- 36:40SPEAKER_02: Um well, Sonia, this is fun.
- 36:43SPEAKER_02: I loved it.
- 36:44SPEAKER_02: Uh always love having you on.
- 36:46SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your time.
- 36:48SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for joining, and uh, I'm sure we'll have you back on soon.
- 36:52SPEAKER_00: Likewise.
- 36:53SPEAKER_00: See you.