10 Year Anniversary of Nymity
NYMITY 10 Year Anniversary   Written by
Terry McQuay, CIPP/US/C/G/E
President of Nymity

10 years ago Nymity was incorporated. Prior to starting Nymity, I was a minority partner in a company which at the time was making their customers aware of PIPEDA, Canada’s then new federal private-sector privacy law. This gave me the idea of starting a new company dedicated to supporting a new role mandated by PIPEDA which states:

“Accountability for the organization’s compliance with the principles rests with the designated individual(s)”

Enacted in 2002, it came into full effect in 2004, so the timing was perfect. I sold my interest from that company and Nymity was born.

Supporting Privacy Officers
Supporting the designated individual(s), commonly referred to as Privacy Officers, was and remains today, Nymity’s sole objective. Of course, other privacy professionals benefit from Nymity’s offering and we have many law firms, consulting firms and regulators as customers. At first we focused on delivering a two day privacy officer training workshop and when not conducting workshops we built an online knowledgebase and created a monthly newsletter (now daily) containing analysis of the latest compliance related activities. This research helped us update the workshops and build a substantial knowledgebase, for which, after a couple years, we started charging a small subscription fee. We decided early on not to pursue consulting as it was a very competitive field at that time, and (in our view) at conflict with maintaining an online knowledgebase. So, Nymity became, and remains, a dedicated research firm.

Global Compliance KnowledgeBases
The first four years were focused on Canadian privacy issues but the goal was always to provide a global offering - this happened in phases and was completed in 2010. Although we started out small, we now have a large team of privacy experts maintaining what grew into three expert knowledgebases:

  1. Rules Knowledgebase, to understand the compliance requirements;
  2. Reference Knowledgebase, containing analysis of the compliance expectations as set out by case law and regulators, plus it includes creditable best-practices; and a
  3. Risks/Control Knowledgebase that supports the integration of privacy into operational policies and procedures and helps with building out an effective privacy program.

The Knowledgebases are jurisdictional sensitive, which means they reflect the needs of the specific country, and the analysis focuses on risks and controls, the foundational information required for compliance.

Thank You Subscribers
Nymity has hundreds of customers which we are dedicated to and proud of supporting and we want to thank you for your patronage. Business has been good and we have grown consistently at nearly 40% every year and we anticipate to do so again in 2012.

Thank You Supporters
There are many individuals that have been extremely helpful to Nymity and myself. We even had an individual fly to Toronto several years back just to help us enhance our offering. If any of you are reading this now, please believe me, I really appreciate the help you have provided, and I know I have not been that good at the follow-up.

Special Thanks
I would like to thank my very dedicated research team, who truly love privacy and data protection, and in the early years worked in a very small space. Nymity moved offices in 2011 and we now have a complete floor in a downtown Toronto office tower. By the way, if you have expertise in privacy, we are hiring.

I would like to thank my business development team, who are known for being pleasant, patient, and persistent. In 2012 we have created an additional dedicated team to provide more training and support to our customers. We are hiring both a business development manager and a marketing individual.

I would also like to thank my operations manager and the rest of the team at Nymity. But most importantly, I would like to thank my wife. Here is the story. If you read this far, you may as well know that I met my wife when I was doing a privacy presentation in Nymity’s second year. A year later we were married and the next year she joined Nymity and is now the VP of Research. There are many advantages of working with your wife, but the one I think we appreciate the most, is the travel. My role requires me to travel extensively, mostly for conferences around the world, to which my wife attends. Every conference we extend our stay and spend the weekend or longer, in some cases a week or two.

So, business is good, and I would like to again thank all of our customer , supporters and staff who have helped me get to where we are today and I look forward to the next 10 years!

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