Like all mature professions, data protection is based on a common set of competencies. But that wasn’t always the case.
After decades of access and privacy laws being on the books, and practitioners (and employers) guessing at what it takes to be a data protection professional, a few visionary PACC leaders decided to do something to formalize a profession that had come into existence in response to laws being enacted, but with little guidance or structure.
In 2009, after years of research and development, with support and participation of employers & data protection regulators across jurisdictions, PACC published the Essential Trilogy — the foundational industry Core Competencies & Professional Standards, the Common Body of Knowledge (CBK), and the principal Code of Conduct for the industry.
The Essential Trilogy provides the most comprehensive description of the generally accepted levels of skill, knowledge, and ethical standards and conduct that define the modern access and privacy profession.
The Essential Trilogy articulates the profession’s basic competencies, and uses clear, easy-to-understand statements that provide a foundation for data protection professionals, regulators, recruiters and employers to manage professional and career development.
The Standards, CBK and Code of Conduct benchmark the skills and competencies needed to be masterful at each level of a data protection career, while offering flexibility that reflects differences between industries, sectors, and roles.
Although developed long before the GDPR, the concepts reflected in PACC’s Core Competencies & Professional Standards, the Common Body of Knowledge, and Code of Conduct — which are embodied in PACC’s Professional Certification Program — reflect current global data protection and information governance requirements, and serve as the foundation for developing the official Canadian standard of competency for the profession in all sectors and will be available for adoption by other countries.
• Contact us to request your copy of the Core Competency Standards
• Contact us to request your copy of the Common Body of Knowledge
• Read the Code of Conduct
PACC’s Strategic Privacy and Access Resource Center provides a wide range of resources relevant for anyone interested in access and privacy — including human resource professionals, lawmakers, and course developers. To gain access to the full range of standards and guidelines, join the PACC.
