In November of 2001, IBM formed both the IBM Privacy Research Institute (PRI) and the IBM Privacy Management Advisory Council (PRI) to split focus on privacy technology R&D. The PRI combines research efforts from 5 major IBM R&D sites worldwide and currently underwrites 20 privacy research projects — everything from privacy preserving data mining, the recently published Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language, and Federated Identity Management. The PRI has 11 external advisors who are leading privacy scholars and Data Protection Commissioners, who work with the PRI to guide its future R&D activities.

The IBM Privacy Management Advisory Council was formed to help IBM develop privacy technology solutions that meet real-world customer requirements.  Comprising 28 internationally recognized organizations — such as Fidelity Investments, Sharp Corporation, Marriott International, eBay, Johnson & Johnson, Health Insurance Commission of Australia, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, and the US Department of Commerce — the PMAC has been instrumental in helping IBM bring Tivoli Privacy Manager for e-business v1.1 to market as the world's first Enterprise Privacy Solution that builds privacy policies into IT Systems.

The PMAC meets three times a year, and recently convened in San Jose, California, to build both an ROI Model and Business Case for Privacy Technology and a Best Practices Guide for Privacy Manager Deployment.

The IBM Privacy Technology Summit will combine the PRI Research Projects and the PMAC market-facing activities to demonstrate the state-of-the-art in privacy technology offerings and research, and discuss enterprise challenges in privacy management from a European perspective. The goal of this meeting is to explore enterprise privacy challenges, technology solutions, and participate in workshops to build an ROI Model and Business Case for Privacy Technology Investment.

This meeting is an opportunity to engage peers and network with a wider privacy community with an operational focus on making privacy work from a business process and IT management perspective. The Zurich venue will provide a productive and relaxing environment to survey industry challenges, review relevant privacy technologies, and study architectural best practices, ROI models, and business cases.