Senior Privacy Officer

Victoria, BC
Temporary
Full-time

15 days ago

We acknowledge with respect that BC Transit delivers our mission on the ancestral territories of Indigenous Peoples across British Columbia, and their historical relationships with the land continue to this day.In Victoria, where our Corporate Office is located, our people are privileged to live and work on the unceded traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples, and the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.Location: Victoria, BCEmployment Type: Regular Full TimeNumber of in-office/on-site days: At least 2 days per monthAnnual Salary Range: Exempt Band 4, MIN $90,800.00 - MED $106,900.00 - MAX $122,900.00Placement in the salary range is determined by an assessment of knowledge, skills, experience and ability of the candidate to meet the key requirements of the job. In addition, our pay philosophy is to align with the median of the comparable market and to be considerate of internal equity comparisons.Closing Date (MM/DD/YYYY): 04/19/2026Are we right for you...Do you bring this rare combination to privacy work: a genuine foundation in IT and a solid understanding of public body privacy legislation, preferably BC's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA).Perhaps you've spent time working in or closely alongside technical teams in infrastructure, application support, systems administration, or IT architecture, and you've built privacy expertise on top of that base.If so, this may be the next step in your career!In this role you will be asked to...Be the privacy office's technical voice, sitting on architecture review boards and AI committees, conducting the technical components of Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs), providing the technical lens during breach response, and translating privacy obligations into requirements that technical teams and vendors can act on. If you've ever been the person in the room who speaks both languages fluently, privacy and technology, and used that to protect personal information at the design stage rather than after the fact, this role was built for you.This person needs to be as comfortable reading a network diagram or a cloud architecture as you are reviewing a PIA. You will produce conceptual, logical, and physical data flow diagrams without being handed a template, and when a development team walks you through a new system, your role will be to follow the data and identify the risks.You are someone that can sit at an architecture review board or AI committee and be taken seriously by engineers and architects, not by pretending to be a developer, but by speaking the language fluently enough to ask precise questions and translate what they hear into privacy risk. You’ll have to be comfortable pushing back on technical decisions with specific, grounded rationale. You can tell a vendor or project team exactly what controls are needed to satisfy FOIPPA obligations.In this role you will not be asked to...Be a security officer, software developer, or network engineer. You have enough technical depth to understand systems from the inside rather than from the outside, and experience in privacy to understand where gaps become risks and how system design can mitigate that.What you might love about this role...

Opportunity to Innovate: You'll help define how the organization approaches privacy in an era of AI and emerging technology, building the strategies and programs that govern how personal information is used in machine learning, automated decision-making, and intelligent systems.
Build Something Real: You'll have a rare opportunity to influence system design from the ground up, embedding privacy-by-design principles directly into systems and enhancing solution decisions.
Be the Technical Voice in the Room: Join a team that's ready to level up. You'll be the go-to technical authority on privacy, translating complex engineering and systems challenges into actionable guidance and bringing a hands-on perspective that balances privacy principles with real-world implementation.
Influence at the Architecture Layer: Your work will shape how privacy is built into the organization's infrastructure. You'll partner with engineering, security, and systems teams to assess risk, evaluate controls, and inform decisions at every stage of development.
Timely Execution: Your knack for creating efficient processes will help keep privacy initiatives on track and aligned with organizational goals.

What might not resonate...Strong IT/technical expectations for a privacy role: Deep knowledge and experience around infrastructure, software, hardware design, and IT security may deter strong privacy candidates who collaborate closely with IT but are not technical specialists themselves.Public-sector compliance: The emphasis on FOIPPA, provincial jurisprudence, OIPC reviews, and Crown‑corporation accountability may not resonate with privacy professionals used to GDPR, PIPEDA, or global regulatory frameworks rather than BC‑specific public‑sector regimes.This role might not be for you if...

Interested soley in policy implementation. While there will be policy development occurring within the team, you will be focused on creating, innovating, and adapting strategies to meet evolving privacy requirements.
Enjoy limited, routine work. Your days won’t be consumed by managing a set of routine tasks. Instead, you will be leading initiatives, driving strategic changes, and improving privacy practices across the organization.
Prefer a reactive work environment. The role isn’t only about responding to issues as they arise. It’s about proactively identifying risks, anticipating privacy challenges, and implementing solutions before problems occur.

What you'll bring to the table...Some qualities you possess to be successful in this role:

Infrastructure literacy - understand how systems are built and hosted.
Application & data architecture - can follow data through a system when a dev team presents a new application.
AI and emerging technology - foundational working knowledge of AI/ML to engage meaningfully on AI committees.
Security fundamentals - not a practitioner, but conversant. Understands IAM, encryption at rest and in transit, audit logging, and access controls. Can read a STRA and contribute the privacy sections.
Diagramming - produces all three views for a PIA without being told what to draw: conceptual (what the system does and what data it touches), logical (data flows, integrations, trust boundaries), and physical (servers, cloud regions, network segments).

To learn more about this role, we encourage you to review the where you'll see all the accountabilities of the position.What we'll bring to the table...

Comprehensive medical and dental benefits to support you and your family, regardless of what life throws at you
Membership in a “gold plated” defined benefit pension plan, meaning it’s the best in the Province and one of the best in the country; putting you in a strong position when it comes time to retire
Access to fitness and lifestyle centers to help you take care of your physical fitness and health
Various programs that support employees such as an Employee Assistance Program and health and wellness initiatives and events aimed at fostering your mental health
A complimentary employee bus pass (plus taxable dependent passes)
A corporate learning and development program to help you in continuous career growth
An employee recognition program where we all recognize each other's successes (not just your Leaders!)
A social club that gives you access to events throughout Victoria

What next steps could look like...

Interviews will take place the week of May 4th, 2026.
There will be an assignment/presentation as part of the interview process.
The position requires the completion of a Criminal Record Check or Vulnerable Sector Search.
An eligibility list may be established for future full time regular and full time temporary vacancies
If you have a disability that requires an accommodation during any stage of our recruitment process, please contact careers@bctransit.com to let us know how we can assist you.
BC Transit is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities. If the organization identifies this position as a reasonable accommodation for an existing employee, all candidates will be notified as soon as reasonably possible.

At BC Transit, we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace; if you’re excited about this role and you have a combination of education and experience that you feel would fulfill its requirements, we encourage you to apply. In keeping with this belief, we do not discriminate on any basis. Should you require any accommodation or have questions, please let us know.

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