Dave Evans: When a RoPA becomes a checkbox - and how to fix it

Описание: Episode 1. Guest: Dave Evans, Group Data Protection Officer at Alter Domus.

In this first episode of Practical Privacy, Orla Dormer sits down with Dave Evans to unpack a problem many privacy teams recognise instantly:
having a ROPA that technically exists, but does not actually help you answer real questions.

Dave shares his experience of inheriting a paper-based ROPA, rushing into a large, expensive privacy tool, and realising too late that the issue was not the format or the tooling, but the questions being asked.

This conversation explores:

1) Why buying a “big” privacy solution too early can create more problems than it solves

2) How compliance tools fail when they are treated as checkboxes rather than operational assets

3) Why there is no one-size-fits-all privacy solution

4) The value of reusing and retrofitting existing ROPA work instead of starting from scratch

5) What Dave would do differently if he could start again

A key takeaway from this episode:
A compliance solution is never just a compliance solution. If it does not help you understand your data, answer internal and external questions, and operate with confidence, it is not doing its job.

This episode is for privacy professionals who are:

Managing legacy ROPAs or inherited documentation

Questioning whether their current tools actually fit their organisation

Tired of redoing work instead of building on what already exists

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🟡 Many of the challenges discussed in this podcast come down to operational complexity in privacy and AI governance. TrustWorks reduces operational drag through context-aware operations that align compliance with how the business actually works. Learn more at https://www.trustworks.io/