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How Data Protection Laws are Reshaping the Print Industry

Data privacy concerns aren’t new, but there has been an increased focus that impacts not only the people producing regulated communication like transactional bills and statements, but anyone who produces output informed by data, including AI-generated text and images. Pat McGrew and Ryan McAbee survey the current landscape.

Tuesday, April 09, 2024

Source: Shutterstock under license

Data privacy concerns aren’t new, but there has been an increased focus that impacts not only the people producing regulated communication like transactional bills and statements, but anyone who produces output informed by data, including AI-generated text and images. The focus on reform and adding safeguards is driving legislation at the state level, but to survive unscathed requires looking beyond state borders to national and international requirements.

In 2023, Statista estimated the global volume of data created at 120 zettabytes. To better visualize the magnitude of this number, one zettabyte (ZB) is 120,000,000,000,000 gigabytes (GB). If you stacked DVDs that each store 4.7 GB, it would take about 40 roundtrips from the Earth to the moon to reach 120 ZB! That’show much data was created just last year.


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About Pat McGrew and Ryan McAbee

Pat is a well-known evangelist for inkjet productivity. At McGrew Group, she uses her decades technical and marketing experience to lead the industry toward optimized business processes and production workflows. She has helped companies to define their five-year plans, audited workflow processes, and developed sales team interventions and education programs. Pat is the Co-Author of 8 industry books, editor of A Guide to the Electronic Document Body of Knowledge, and a regular contributor to Inkjet Insight and WhatTheyThink.com. Ryan McAbee is Chief Analyst at Pixel Dot Consulting LLC.

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