My prediction: By 2010, half of the Fortune 500 will have made a public notification of security breach and subsequently hired a chief information protection officer overseeing both privacy and security. And insurance companies will force the other half to follow suit. The U.S.-EU privacy Safe Harbor will more than double its membership to 2,000 companies, and negotiations will commence for an International Safe Harbor. The best law schools and MIS programs in the country will have a discipline in data protection. And somewhere, somehow, a chief privacy officer will become CEO, as the reality sinks in that the future of business is data.

Table 1: Leading American law firms with privacy consultancies

Law Firm Privacy full-time employees Privacy specialties

Baker & McKenzie 60 Global compliance & data transfers

Offshoring, outsourcing & third-party