Notes from the Asia-Pacific region: Robust conversations at richly rewarding Summit The IAPP Global Summit 2026 brought together diverse voices — from scientists and legal scholars to authors and global figures — to discuss privacy as a deeply human, culturally significant and increasingly urgent challenge. Contributors: Charmian Aw AIGP, CIPP/A, CIPP/E, CIPP/US, CIPM, FIP Partner Hogan Lovells Editor's note The IAPP is policy neutral. We publish contributed opinion pieces to enable our members to hear a broad spectrum of views in our domains. This year's IAPP Global Summit 2026, held just last week, featured a series of robust, potent conversations, which lingered long after attendees departed. Highlights continuing to brew in my mind are distilled below. The conference opened with cognitive scientist Maya Shankar, whose work and book on decision-making invite us to reconsider the invisible forces shaping human behavior. Shankar's keynote was nothing short of a hand-crafted, house-blend reflection on how small interventions can stir profound change. In a conversation with IAPP Vice President and Chief Knowledge Officer Caitlin Fennessy, CIPP/US, world-renowned author Salman Rushdie added a deeply human and cultural dimension. Reflecting on his experiences and observations, including life in India, Rushdie highlighted how privacy is neither universal nor evenly distributed. In the slums, privacy is a luxury. Cultural norms, social structures and economic realities shape what privacy means — and whether it is even attainable. Boston University School of Law Professor Woodrow Hartzog's keynote was a calibrated dark roast — deep, complex and intentionally uncomfortable. He spoke candidly about privacy's ongoing identity crisis. Against the backdrop of shrinking budgets and expanding technological capability, Hartzog warned of the risks posed by surveillance systems, including facial recognition, and the creeping normalization of intrusive technologies. Unfettered artificial intelligence, he argued, threatens not just data protection, but the very fabric of