Anna Johnston is one of Australia’s most respected experts in privacy law and practice. Anna is Principal and Founder at Salinger Privacy, a consultancy specialising in privacy advisory services, privacy training and pragmatic compliance resources.
Since establishing Salinger Privacy in 2004, Anna has provided advice on data ethics, managing privacy risks, and the application of privacy design strategies to clients including tech start-ups, established businesses and government agencies. She has conducted Privacy Impact Assessments on large and highly complex cross-jurisdictional and data linkage projects for government, while her private sector clients cross the economy, including the health, banking, human services, education, media, pharmaceutical, technology, insurance and professional services sectors.
As the former Deputy Privacy Commissioner for NSW, Anna also knows the regulator’s perspective. Since establishing Salinger Privacy, she has also been commissioned to write privacy guidance publications, and deliver presentations and training, on behalf of other privacy regulators.
Anna’s articles about privacy issues, from the influential Salinger Privacy blog to privacy industry pages, law journals and mainstream media, have been quoted in a Royal Commission, prompted reforms to privacy laws and a boycott of the 2016 Census, won awards for privacy writing, and introduced a new concept – individuation – into the privacy lexicon.
Anna has presented as a guest lecturer in Data Privacy Law for the Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of NSW, and in 2022 was appointed to Xero’s global Responsible Data Use Advisory Council. She has presented as a Visiting Scholar at the Research Group on Law, Science, Technology and Society of the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), at the Privacy Laws & Business conference at Cambridge (UK), and as a regular speaker at the IAPP ANZ Summit.
Anna has been called upon to provide expert testimony before various Parliamentary inquiries, the Productivity Commission and the European Commission, and is regularly asked to comment on privacy issues in the media. She has been a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) since 2008, and in 2019 was recognised as an industry veteran by the IAPP with the designation of Fellow of Information Privacy (FIP).
In 2022, Anna was honoured for her ‘exceptional leadership, knowledge and creativity in privacy’ with the IAPP Vanguard Award, one of five privacy professionals recognised globally whose pioneering work is helping to shape the future of privacy and data protection. While her day-to-day work involves assisting clients to develop innovative approaches to privacy protection, the Vanguard award was bestowed in reflection of Anna’s contributions to the privacy profession, and to the protection of privacy for the benefit of all. In particular, the award recognised Anna’s contributions in a voluntary capacity over 20 years, including both formal and informal advocacy on key issues, multiple pro bono advisory positions, and knowledge-sharing through speaking and writing about privacy. Her passionate pursuit of law reform to improve protection against digital harms was called out in particular.
Anna holds a first class honours degree in Law, a Masters of Public Policy with honours, a Graduate Certificate in Management, a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, and a Bachelor of Arts. She is a Certified Information Privacy Professional, Europe (CIPP/E) and a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM). She was admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW in 1996.