Category: France

Well I was pretty impressed that France seemed to be the first on the block to get some kind of official recognition for the DPO role. Organisations which train and certify DPOs can apply to be on their list of accredited organisations.

Great I think. We need to apply… in ‘we‘ I mean Privasee of course!

Privasee has DPO training which is accredited at 5 ECTs* on exam completion (Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework which equals Level 6 Certification *EQF (European Qualifications Framework))

But Privasee will not apply, and why? Well because it requires (1) inclusion of the French Data Protection Act in the training content, and (2) candidate for CNIL accreditation must first be accredited by an accreditation body pursuant to standard ISO/CEI 17024:2012.

There is absolutely no inclusion of academic accreditation to which the Privasee CPP/EU-DPO has earned. The ISO standard mentioned above is purely that the certification conforms to a specific schedule. The academic accreditation that Privasee has earned for their DPO training has both content and structure assessed.

Why are academic qualifications not included here? And why exclude all DPO training/certification organisations which are not French?

Flashback to when I was a security guy and the proud owner of the MSc in Information Security from the Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL, 2006), renowned best globally in Infosec/cybersecurity education with gurus such as Prof. Fred Piper. I was nonetheless continually frustrated by the need for CISSP certification which required an individual to read a book, memorise and regurgitate in multiple choice test questions. Whereas with the Master Degree which many of us studied part-time or distance in addition to a full-time job over 2-4 years was completely ignored. The headhunters had a search algorithm which searched for CISSP and NOT MSc. This hurts, as those of us who have completed the MSc will acknowledge it is expensive, and then just because of an automated decision engine we are excluded from potential jobs.

Fast forward to now. I realise that with GDPR that those recruiting may have a challenge with these kind of automated decisions. I wonder when the job applicants will cotton on to this?

And then back to the CNIL as a DPO certification accreditation body. As you’ve probably realised by now, I’m just a little bit peeved that again… maybe I’m taking this personally… being excluded.

On the bright side. Even IAPP with the combined CIPP/E and CIPM (to be the DPO) will not be able to fulfil this requirement. The CIPP/E has nothing on French data protection.

Taking a practical approach. Privasee could theoretically get the ISO thingy, and if you are a French privacy/legal guy/girl with a French business, who would like to give this a bash. Contact me and become a Privasee OWL Partner. The adaptation of the CPP/EU-DPO training to a CPP/Fr-DPO training would be minimal… IMHO