↓Skip to main content

Announcing Field Talk: a free, practitioner-led data protection conference

·4 mins
Data Protection Privacy Culture Employee Engagement GDPR Training Design

Field Talk — 17–19 November 2026

Field Talk is a free, vendor-free, practitioner-led online conference for the data protection and privacy community, running 17–19 November 2026 at fieldtalk.eu. No tiers or passes, no sponsor pitches dressed up as sessions, no travel required. Just practitioners talking to practitioners about how the work actually gets done.

Why I’m doing this #

The large global membership organisations in our profession do some valuable work. I have learned a great deal through them over the years. But as someone in my network reminded me recently, a few hundred thousand members between them sounds big, until you consider the privacy and data protection profession globally and the ginormous number of people who are not members or have never attended one of their conferences or events. DPOs in municipalities, Data Engineers in mid-sized manufacturers, UI/UX designers in online retail, Records Managers in universities, Data Protection Leaders across every country where data protection law now exists. Against that population, a few hundred thousand is a drop in the ocean.

The big conferences sit behind registration fees that run into four figures, plus flights, plus hotels, plus days out of the office. And if you hold their certifications, well, you have the costs of the certification courses themselves (fair enough, but they are expensive), and on top of that, assuming you pass the exam, you need to pay a fee each year to maintain the certification, and, you must demonstrate ongoing professional development (CPEs, CPDs, etc.) Although you can do this with one CPE here and there, e.g. watching a webinar, the big CPE/CPD numbers are to be had by attending the conferences. It’s a vicious circle and a lucrative business model.

For practitioners in large, well-funded data protection teams, it’s all a line item on an expense form.

For the majority of the profession, it is simply out of reach.

The people I keep thinking about #

I think about the practitioners doing this work on small budgets, or no budget at all. The sole DPO covering an entire public authority. The privacy counsel in a region where the nearest major conference is two flights away and the employer will fund neither. The person who built their company’s entire data protection programme from scratch and has never once sat in a room - physical or virtual - with peers who understand what that took.

These people are not at the margins of the profession. Numerically, they are the profession. Yet the structures we have built for sharing knowledge are designed around the minority who can travel, pay, and take the time.

That is the gap Field Talk is meant to address. Not to compete with the big events - they serve their audience well - but to serve everyone else.

What Field Talk is #

  • Free. No registration fee, no paywall, no “premium tier.”
  • Vendor-free. No sponsored sessions, no product demos, no lead capture. Speakers are there because they have something worth saying, not something to sell.
  • Practitioner-led. Sessions come from people doing the work - implementation stories, honest failures, things that actually made a difference - not panel platitudes.
  • Online and accessible. Three half-days, 17–19 November 2026, streamed openly. If you have an internet connection, you have a seat. Afterwards, the recordings will be free to view on the website, no matter where you are in the world.

The format is deliberately modest: around fifteen speakers across three half-days. Quality over volume.

What happens next #

I’m currently building out the programme with speakers, as well as get the website looking a bit more aestectically pleasing - it is a bit sparse right now. If you would like to be kept informed, there is a newsletter signup on the Field Talk homepage. If you are a practitioner with a story worth telling, particularly one about doing this work with limited resources, I would genuinely like to hear from you for this, or a future event.

Frequently Asked Questions #

What is Field Talk? Field Talk is a free, vendor-free, practitioner-led online conference for data protection and privacy professionals, running over three half-days from 17–19 November 2026. It is streamed openly at fieldtalk.eu with no registration fee.

Who is Field Talk for? It is for the vast majority of the profession who cannot attend the large commercial conferences - practitioners working with small budgets, in small teams, or in locations where travel to major events is impractical or unaffordable.

How is Field Talk different from the big industry conferences? There are no fees, no sponsors, and no vendor sessions. All content comes from practitioners sharing real-world experience, and everything is delivered online so cost and geography are not barriers to participation.

Purpose and Means works with organisations on data protection strategy, governance, and compliance — going beyond the legal text to focus on how things actually get done. If you’d like to discuss what this means for your organisation, book a call or explore our services.

Author
Tim Clements
Tim Clements is Business Owner of Purpose and Means, a data protection and GRC consultancy based in Copenhagen, operating globally. He helps data protection and GRC leaders simplify complexity into actionable strategies, providing tools, training, and support to engage and influence across the organisation. Tim is a Chartered Fellow of the BCS (British Computer Society).

Browse by Topic

access controls accountability accountability frameworks ai act ai ethics ai governance ai infrastructure sovereignty ai literacy ai regulation article 12 article 13 article 22 article 25 article 28 article 30 article 32 article 35 article 46 article 5 article 6 article 7 audit and assessment automated decision-making awareness awareness campaigns behaviour change beyond legal board level board reporting case law change management chief people officer cloud infrastructure compliance monitoring consent cookie compliance cross-border transfers customer success dark patterns data accuracy data breach notification data flows data mapping data minimisation data processing agreements data protection data protection by design data protection culture data protection day data protection hero data protection leader data quality data residency data retention data science data sovereignty data subject rights datatilsynet deceptive design design thinking direct marketing dora dpia education employee data employee engagement enterprise architecture eprivacy esg executive communication external legal counsel finance and banking gdpr gdpr at 10 generative ai governance grc healthcare history horizon scanning hr and data protection hr and employment incident response information security intellectual property internal communications international transfers lawful basis leadership lego serious play machine learning marketing nis2 passwords privacy by design privacy culture privacy policy product management profiling public sector purpose limitation quantum computing records of processing regulatory guidance risk management risk reduction ropa sales security software development special category data standard contractual clauses strategic planning sub-processors supply chain sustainability system design third-party risk training training design transparency trend radar ux design vendor management visual communication weak signals workshop facilitation

Related Posts