What Is a Virtual Privacy Officer (VPO) and When Should You Hire One?
A Virtual Privacy Officer (VPO) is an outsourced privacy lead who helps you run and demonstrate a real privacy program without hiring a full-time internal privacy officer.
If privacy keeps landing on someone’s plate “in addition to their actual job,” a VPO is how you stop dropping balls.
What a VPO actually does
A VPO typically supports three things: program, projects, and proof.
- Program: policies, training, vendor rules, retention, incident response, governance
- Projects: privacy input on new features, data flows, vendors, AI use, and integrations
- Proof: documentation and evidence for customer questionnaires, audits, and procurement
In practice, it looks like a steady cadence of small decisions that prevent big problems.
If you want the service page, start here: Virtual Privacy Officer (VPO)
When should you hire a VPO?
A VPO is usually a good fit if any of these are true:
- You’re collecting more personal data than you’re comfortable explaining on one slide
- You’re selling into regulated industries (healthcare, public sector, insurance)
- Security questionnaires are stacking up and slowing deals
- Your vendor stack is growing fast (analytics, support, AI tools, integrations)
- You’ve had a privacy incident, and don’t want a repeat
- You need someone to own privacy decisions, but a full-time hire isn’t realistic yet
VPO vs. privacy consultant: what’s the difference?
A one-time consultant helps you produce a deliverable.
A VPO helps you build a repeatable system and keeps it alive month after month. That continuity is the key difference.
If you want a structured baseline first, explore Minimum Viable Privacy (MVP)
What you get from a VPO (deliverables you can actually use)
A good vPO engagement should produce tangible outputs, such as:
- A privacy program roadmap with clear priorities and owners
- A simple data inventory and vendor map
- Policy set + internal handling rules that match how you operate
- A lightweight process for privacy reviews (PIAs when needed)
- Evidence you can reuse in security questionnaires
If you need formal project-level reviews, these are often part of the workflow:
How to decide if you need a VPO or a vCISO
Privacy and security overlap, but they’re not the same.
- Choose a VPO when your biggest friction is data handling, compliance expectations, and privacy governance.
- Choose a vCISO when your biggest friction is security controls, threat exposure, and security leadership.
If you’re not sure, you can look at both:
Quick start: the first 30 days
A practical VPO onboarding usually focuses on:
- What personal information you collect and where it flows
- Your highest-risk vendors and access points
- Your most urgent policy gaps
- Your incident response readiness
- Your next product changes that need privacy review
Want an experienced privacy lead without the full-time hire?
If you want privacy handled consistently without slowing your team down. Start here: Book a call
If you want to browse first, see: FAQs