Is Privacy Dead?

Is Privacy Dead—or on Life Support? Ross Saunders on Breaches, GDPR, AI, and Saving Privacy

In this episode of Cybersecurity Today on the Weekend, host David Shipley speaks with Toronto-based privacy and cybersecurity consultant Ross Saunders about whether privacy is "dead" amid major breaches, including a database allegedly exposing 153 million North American driver's licenses through compromised ID-verification infrastructure.

Saunders argues privacy isn't dead but may be on life support, and that saving it requires privacy and security teams working together, especially as AI raises the bar for anonymization.

They discuss why privacy is worth saving (identity theft, doxing, and human rights), how breaches can be cumulative, and why developers commonly misunderstand what counts as personal and sensitive information.

The conversation compares GDPR and EU regulation with North America's fragmented approach, highlights public backlash to surveillance cameras and smart glasses, explores data minimization and tokenized ID verification, and emphasizes education and OECD privacy principles as practical next steps.

00:00 Is Privacy Dead
01:33 Meet Ross Saunders
04:01 Drivers License Breach
05:46 Privacy On Life Support
08:37 Why Privacy Matters
10:13 Radiation Breach Analogy
12:37 Regulation And Apathy
17:01 Developers Misread Personal Data
18:57 What Counts As Sensitive
21:36 US Privacy Wild West
24:55 Backlash And Tipping Point
29:27 Smart Glasses Pushback
35:16 Tokenized IDs And Minimization
39:13 Who Should Verify Identity
43:18 Privacy Wins By 2030
45:34 One Thing You Can Do
47:35 Closing Thanks