Privacy Cold-Start Interview

Privacy Cold-Start Interview

Purpose

Conduct a structured, staged interview with a privacy practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate practice-profiles/privacy.md. The skill walks through all eight profile fields in sequence, records every answer, and assembles a filled draft of the profile for the practice group's review and approval. It produces draft legal work product for attorney review — not legal advice and not a final configuration.

Use When

• A team is adopting AgentCounsel and needs to configure practice-profiles/privacy.md for the first time.
• A privacy practice group is being onboarded to the library and no current profile exists.
• The library is being stood up for the first time and the privacy area is included in scope.
• A practice group wishes to revisit or rebuild its profile from scratch rather than make incremental updates.

Required Inputs

• A knowledgeable person from the privacy practice group — a supervising attorney or an authorized designee — who can answer questions about the group's jurisdictional scope, controller/processor default posture, breach-notification stance, transfer positions, and review requirements.
• Any existing privacy policies, data-processing agreements, breach-response playbooks, records of processing activities, or data-mapping documents the group already uses, so they can be referenced or cited in the profile.

Do Not Use When

• The group is actively responding to a live privacy incident, breach, or regulatory inquiry. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter.
• A practice-profiles/privacy.md already exists and is current. In that case this is a refresh, not a cold start — though the skill may still be used to rebuild the profile deliberately.
• No authorized person is available to answer. Do not complete the interview with guessed or inferred answers; record all gaps as [CONFIRM: ...] placeholders.
• The purpose is to draft a privacy notice, a data-processing agreement, or a breach notification for a specific matter (use the appropriate matter-level skill for that task).

Legal Safety Rules

• Produce draft legal work product for attorney review. This is not legal advice.
• Never guess or infer an answer to any interview question. If the interviewee cannot answer a question, record [CONFIRM: answer required from practice group] and move on.
• The filled profile is a draft. It must be reviewed and explicitly approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it governs any AgentCounsel work product.
• Do not invent standard positions, breach-notification stances, transfer mechanisms, DSAR-handling timelines, or escalation thresholds. Record only what the interviewee provides.
• Do not include client-specific facts, client names, matter identifiers, specific data subjects, or privileged details in the profile. The profile is a reusable group-level configuration, not a matter record.
• Do not state or imply that any position, stance, or threshold in the profile satisfies the requirements of any privacy law or regulation in any jurisdiction. Jurisdiction-specific legal obligations — including notification deadlines — are for the attorney to verify [verify jurisdiction].
• Do not assert or imply any notification deadline or response period. All privacy-law deadlines are attorney-verified items outside the scope of this profile and are marked [deadline verification required].
• Flag every item the interviewee defers or leaves open with a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder so the reviewer can see exactly what is unresolved.

Workflow

Stage 1 — Jurisdictions

Ask the interviewee:

• In which countries, states, or provinces does the group primarily advise on privacy and data protection matters?
• Does the group advise on cross-border data transfers, and if so, between which regions or jurisdictions?
• Are there jurisdictions where the group's clients are subject to sector-specific privacy regimes — such as those covering health data, financial data, or children's data — and does the group advise on those regimes?
• Are there jurisdictions that the group treats as out of scope, requiring escalation or specialist outside counsel?
• Does the group maintain jurisdiction-specific guidance documents or reference materials? If so, what are they called and where are they stored?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: jurisdiction not yet specified].

Stage 2 — Client and Team Context

Ask the interviewee:

• Who are the primary clients of the privacy group — internal business units, external clients, or both?
• What types of privacy matters does the group handle most frequently — regulatory advice, contract review, incident response, DSAR handling, data-mapping projects, or other types?
• How is the team structured — are matters handled by individual attorneys, teams, or in a hybrid model?
• Are there client categories or data types that require special handling or additional sign-off — for example, clients handling sensitive categories of personal data, health information, or data involving minors?
• Does the group coordinate with an in-house data protection officer or a designated privacy function? If so, how does that coordination work?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: client/team context not yet specified].

Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds

Ask the interviewee:

• What events or indicators trigger mandatory escalation to a supervising attorney or the group's lead — for example, a confirmed breach affecting more than a specified number of individuals, a regulatory inquiry, or a matter involving a sensitive data category?
• Are there matter types — such as cross-border transfers involving high-risk jurisdictions, matters involving children's data, or matters with a potential notification obligation — that always require escalation regardless of scale?
• What is the group's threshold for involving external specialist counsel or a forensics firm in an incident response?
• Who is the designated escalation contact for matters that exceed these thresholds, and what is the expected response time?
• Does the group maintain a written escalation matrix or incident-severity framework? If so, what is it called and where is it stored?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: escalation threshold not yet specified].

Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style

Ask the interviewee:

• Should privacy work product be delivered as a narrative memo, a structured risk table, a checklist, a gap analysis, or another format?
• What level of detail does the practice group expect — executive summary only, full issue-by-issue analysis, or both?
• Are there house style rules for how risk levels, action items, or open questions should be labeled or formatted?
• Should drafts include a separate assumptions section and a separate verification-items section, or are those integrated into the body?
• Are there particular deliverable types — breach-notification drafts, DSAR response templates, data-mapping summaries — for which the group has mandatory format requirements?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: output style preference not yet specified].

Stage 5 — Source-of-Truth Documents

Ask the interviewee:

• What documents constitute the group's authoritative source of truth for privacy standards and positions — for example, a privacy program policy, a data-processing agreement template library, a breach-response playbook, or a records-of-processing-activities document?
• Where are those documents stored, and how should an agent reference them in work product?
• Are any of those documents currently under revision or not yet finalized? If so, which version governs until a new one is approved?
• Does the group maintain a data map or data inventory that agents should reference when assessing the scope of a privacy matter?
• Is there a formal process for updating or approving changes to the source documents?

Record answers and document names. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: source document not yet identified].

Stage 6 — Standard Positions and Playbooks

Ask the interviewee:

• What is the group's default posture when a client's role is ambiguous — controller, processor, or joint controller — and what factors does the group use to assess that question?
• What is the group's default stance on breach notification — conservative (notify when in doubt), threshold-based (notify only when a defined threshold is met), or another approach?
• What is the group's default position on cross-border data transfers — what transfer mechanisms does the group prefer, which does it avoid, and how does it handle transfers to or from jurisdictions with restricted transfer rules [verify jurisdiction]?
• What is the group's standard approach to DSAR handling — default response timeline target [deadline verification required], identity-verification process, and scope-limitation criteria?
• Does the group have standard data-processing agreement positions — for example, on sub-processor approval, audit rights, deletion timelines, and liability allocation?
• Does the group maintain a formal playbook document that captures these positions? If so, what is it called and where is it stored?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: standard position not yet specified].

Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements

Ask the interviewee:

• At what stage of a privacy matter does attorney review of work product become mandatory — initial intake, before any external communication, before any regulatory notification, or at other defined stages?
• Are there work-product types for which attorney review is always required regardless of matter stage — for example, breach notification drafts, regulatory responses, or data-transfer impact assessments?
• What is the designated reviewer's role — handling attorney, supervising attorney, data protection officer, or general counsel?
• What is the expected turnaround time for attorney review of standard privacy work product, and how are urgent reviews handled?
• Is there a formal sign-off step — for example, a required approval notation or logged confirmation — before work product is sent externally or a notification is submitted to a regulator?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: review requirement not yet specified].

Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions

Ask the interviewee:

• Are there facts, postures, or legal conclusions that agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — for example, that a prior privacy impact assessment remains current, that a transfer mechanism is still valid, or that a data map is up to date?
• Are there privacy-specific risks — such as a notification obligation, a cross-border transfer restriction, or a sensitive-data classification — where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently?
• Are there matter types or data categories where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement?
• Are there prior incidents, regulatory inquiries, or lessons learned that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on privacy matters?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: prohibited assumption not yet specified].

Stage 9 — Assemble the Draft Profile

Compile all answers into a filled draft of practice-profiles/privacy.md, populating each of the eight profile sections. For every item that was not answered, insert a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder with enough context for the reviewer to understand what needs to be supplied. Append a list of all open placeholders so the reviewing attorney can see at a glance what remains unresolved.

Output Format

Deliver:

1. Filled draft of practice-profiles/privacy.md — all eight sections populated with answers from the interview. Every unanswered item is a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder.
2. Open-items list — an explicit enumeration of every placeholder inserted, with the stage and question it corresponds to, so the reviewing attorney can resolve them efficiently.

Label the entire output: Draft legal work product for attorney review. Not legal advice. This profile draft must be reviewed and approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it is relied upon.

Attorney Verification Checklist

• All eight profile sections have been reviewed by a supervising attorney or authorized practice-group representative.
• Jurisdictions listed are accurate and complete for the group's current practice, including all relevant data-protection regimes [verify jurisdiction].
• Controller/processor default posture reflects the group's current considered position, not a provisional or informal one.
• Breach-notification stance is consistent with applicable notification obligations across all in-scope jurisdictions [verify jurisdiction] and all notification-related deadlines are marked [deadline verification required].
• Cross-border transfer positions reference current, valid transfer mechanisms [verify jurisdiction].
• DSAR-handling conventions are consistent with applicable response-period obligations [verify jurisdiction] and all DSAR deadlines are marked [deadline verification required].
• Source-of-truth documents listed are finalized and in effect; any documents under revision are flagged.
• Data map or data inventory referenced, if any, is current and maintained.
• Attorney review requirements match the group's current supervision model and any applicable regulatory requirements [verify jurisdiction].
• Prohibited assumptions are accurate and do not inadvertently exclude items that should be permitted.
• No client-specific facts, matter identifiers, data-subject information, or privileged details appear in the profile.
• All [CONFIRM: ...] placeholders have been resolved or explicitly accepted as pending.
• The approved profile has been saved to practice-profiles/privacy.md and its effective date recorded.
• A process for periodic profile review and update — particularly in response to regulatory change — has been identified.