Hello, welcome to this special edition of Emlex's weekly podcast. My name is Matthew Newman,

and I'm coming to you this week from the world's largest privacy conference, the International Association of

Privacy Professionals. I'm N. Lex's chief correspondent covering data protection, regulation,

AI, and cybersecurity. I'm usually based in Brussels, but today I'm in Washington, D.C. I'm

recording this late on Wednesday after a three-day meeting that I've spent in a cavernous

conference room in Washington.

And joining me is Mike Swift, who is M. Lex's chief global digital risk correspondent.

Mike, it's really great to see you in person.

It's great to be here. It's been a great three days. I'm kind of running on fumes right now.

I'm feeling a little punch drunk with all the privacy talk, but it'll be fun to hash over what we've gone through the last three days.

Well, let's just start off right away and go into some of the highlights.

What did you think the biggest takeaway it was this week?

Well, you know, it's funny, like at one point in the conference, I did a search on our website,

and I hit on a story that I wrote the first time I covered one of these, which was eight years ago.

And it just took me back.

It was like this tiny little conference with,

you know, a couple hundred people in this sort of seedy hotel lobby. And this week, there

were about 4,500 people here. It was their largest ever paid attendance. The IAPP said

it's grown from 50,000 members just three years ago to almost

75,000, just over, so they've basically grown by 50% in three years. And it gives you a sense

of how big privacy is becoming. My feet are so sore right now from walking around this giant, you know,

Warren of this rabbit hutch we've been in underground for the last three days.

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