IAPP CIPM Practice Exams
Last updated on Oct 22,2026- Exam Code: CIPM
- Exam Name: Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM)
- Certification Provider: IAPP
- Latest update: Oct 22,2026
SCENARIO
Please use the following to answer the next QUESTION:
Richard McAdams recently graduated law school and decided to return to the small town of Lexington, Virginia to help run his aging grandfather’s law practice. The elder McAdams desired a limited, lighter role in the practice, with the hope that his grandson would eventually take over when he fully retires. In addition to hiring Richard, Mr. McAdams employs two paralegals, an administrative assistant, and a part-time IT specialist who handles all of their basic networking needs. He plans to hire more employees once Richard gets settled and assesses the office’s strategies for growth.
Immediately upon arrival, Richard was amazed at the amount of work that needed to done in order to modernize the office, mostly in regard to the handling of clients’ personal data. His first goal is to digitize all the records kept in file cabinets, as many of the documents contain personally identifiable financial and medical data. Also, Richard has noticed the massive amount of copying by the administrative assistant throughout the day, a practice that not only adds daily to the number of files in the file cabinets, but may create security issues unless a formal policy is firmly in place Richard is also concerned with the overuse of the communal copier/ printer located in plain view of clients who frequent the building. Yet another area of concern is the use of the same fax machine by all of the employees. Richard hopes to reduce its use dramatically in order to ensure that personal data receives the utmost security and protection, and eventually move toward a strict Internet faxing policy by the year’s end.
Richard expressed his concerns to his grandfather, who agreed, that updating data storage, data security, and an overall approach to increasing the protection of personal data in all facets is necessary Mr. McAdams granted him the freedom and authority to do so. Now Richard is not only beginning a career as an attorney, but also functioning as the privacy officer of the small firm. Richard plans to meet with the IT employee the following day, to get insight into how the office computer system is currently set-up and managed.
As Richard begins to research more about Data Lifecycle Management (DLM), he discovers that the law office can lower the risk of a data breach by doing what?
- A . Prioritizing the data by order of importance.
- B . Minimizing the time it takes to retrieve the sensitive data.
- C . Reducing the volume and the type of data that is stored in its system.
- D . Increasing the number of experienced staff to code and categorize the incoming data.
According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the requirements of a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) include that it?
- A . Be reported to the corresponding supervisory authority.
- B . Publish the report to demonstrate the transparency of the data processing.
- C . Provide a description of the proposed processing operation and its purpose.
- D . Is required if the processing activity entails risk to the rights and freedoms of an EU individual.
Which of the following best supports implementing controls to bring privacy policies into effect?
- A . The internal audit department establishing the audit controls which test for policy effectiveness.
- B . The legal department or outside counsel conducting a thorough review of the privacy program and policies.
- C . The Chief Information Officer as part of the Senior Management Team creating enterprise privacy policies to ensure controls are available.
- D . The information technology (IT) group supporting and enhancing the privacy program and privacy policy by developing processes and controls.
SCENARIO
Please use the following to answer the next QUESTION:
Penny has recently joined Ace Space, a company that sells homeware accessories online, as its new privacy officer. The company is based in California but thanks to some great publicity from a social media influencer last year, the company has received an influx of sales from the EU and has set up a regional office in Ireland to support this expansion. To become familiar with Ace Space’s practices and assess what her privacy priorities will be, Penny has set up meetings with a number of colleagues to hear about the work that they have been doing and their compliance efforts.
Penny’s colleague in Marketing is excited by the new sales and the company’s plans, but is also concerned that Penny may curtail some of the growth opportunities he has planned. He tells her “I heard someone in the breakroom talking about some new privacy laws but I really don’t think it affects us. We’re just a small company. I mean we just sell accessories online, so what’s the real risk?” He has also told her that he works with a number of small companies that help him get projects completed in a hurry. “We’ve got to meet our deadlines otherwise we lose money. I just sign the contracts and get Jim in finance to push through the payment. Reviewing the contracts takes time that we just don’t have.”
In her meeting with a member of the IT team, Penny has learned that although Ace Space has taken a number of precautions to protect its website from malicious activity, it has not taken the same level of care of its physical files or internal infrastructure. Penny’s colleague in IT has told her that a former employee lost an encrypted USB key with financial data on it when he left. The company nearly lost access to their customer database last year after they fell victim to a phishing attack. Penny is told by her IT colleague that the IT team “didn’t know what to do or who should do what. We hadn’t been trained on it but we’re a small team though, so it worked out OK in the end.” Penny is concerned that these issues will compromise Ace Space’s privacy and data protection.
Penny is aware that the company has solid plans to grow its international sales and will be working closely with the CEO to give the organization a data “shake up”. Her mission is to cultivate a strong privacy culture within the company.
Penny has a meeting with Ace Space’s CEO today and has been asked to give her first impressions and an overview of her next steps.
To establish the current baseline of Ace Space’s privacy maturity, Penny should consider all of the following factors EXCEPT?
- A . Ace Space’s documented procedures
- B . Ace Space’s employee training program
- C . Ace Space’s vendor engagement protocols
- D . Ace Space’s content sharing practices on social media
SCENARIO
Please use the following to answer the next QUESTION:
Your organization, the Chicago (U.S.)-based Society for Urban Greenspace, has used the same vendor to operate all aspects of an online store for several years. As a small nonprofit, the Society cannot afford the higher-priced options, but you have been relatively satisfied with this budget vendor, Shopping Cart Saver (SCS). Yes, there have been some issues. Twice, people who purchased items from the store have had their credit card information used fraudulently subsequent to transactions on your site, but in neither case did the investigation reveal with certainty that the Society’s store had been hacked. The thefts could have been employee-related.
Just as disconcerting was an incident where the organization discovered that SCS had sold information it had collected from customers to third parties. However, as Jason Roland, your SCS account representative, points
out, it took only a phone call from you to clarify expectations and the “misunderstanding” has not occurred again.
As an information-technology program manager with the Society, the role of the privacy professional is only one of many you play. In all matters, however, you must consider the financial bottom line. While these problems with privacy protection have been significant, the additional revenues of sales of items such as shirts and coffee cups from the store have been significant. The Society’s operating budget is slim, and all sources of revenue are essential.
Now a new challenge has arisen. Jason called to say that starting in two weeks, the customer data from the store would now be stored on a data cloud. “The good news,” he says, “is that we have found a low-cost provider in Finland, where the data would also be held. So, while there may be a small charge to pass through to you, it won’t be exorbitant, especially considering the advantages of a cloud.”
Lately, you have been hearing about cloud computing and you know it’s fast becoming the new paradigm for various applications. However, you have heard mixed reviews about the potential impacts on privacy protection. You begin to research and discover that a number of the leading cloud service providers have signed a letter of intent to work together on shared conventions and technologies for privacy protection. You make a note to find out if Jason’s Finnish provider is signing on.
What is the best way for your vendor to be clear about the Society’s breach notification expectations?
- A . Include notification provisions in the vendor contract
- B . Arrange regular telephone check-ins reviewing expectations
- C . Send a memorandum of understanding on breach notification
- D . Email the regulations that require breach notifications
All of the following are access control measures required by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) EXCEPT?
- A . Restrict physical access to cardholder data.
- B . Update antivirus software before granting access.
- C . Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access.
- D . Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know.
The first step an organization should take when considering the use of a third-party’s AI-based resume ranking tool is to?
- A . Secure stakeholder buy-in and approval to ensure the tool meets the organization’s requirements.
- B . Conduct an assessment of the tool’s impact both on privacy and on conformity with applicable AI regulation.
- C . Distribute a notice to the candidates whose resumes the tool will assess to ensure they understand and consent to the use of the tool.
- D . Secure appropriate contractual concessions to ensure that the developer is primarily responsible for any violation of applicable privacy law.
Rationalizing requirements in order to comply with the various privacy requirements required by applicable law and regulation does NOT include which of the following?
- A . Harmonizing shared obligations and privacy rights across varying legislation and/or regulators.
- B . Implementing a solution that significantly addresses shared obligations and privacy rights.
- C . Applying the strictest standard for obligations and privacy rights that doesn’t violate privacy laws elsewhere.
- D . Addressing requirements that fall outside the common obligations and rights (outliers) on a case-by-case basis.
SCENARIO
Please use the following to answer the next QUESTION:
As the Director of data protection for Consolidated Records Corporation, you are justifiably pleased with your accomplishments so far. Your hiring was precipitated by warnings from regulatory agencies following a series of relatively minor data breaches that could easily have been worse. However, you have not had a reportable incident for the three years that you have been with the company. In fact, you consider your program a model that others in the data storage industry may note in their own program development.
You started the program at Consolidated from a jumbled mix of policies and procedures and worked toward coherence across departments and throughout operations. You were aided along the way by the program’s sponsor, the vice president of operations, as well as by a Privacy Team that started from a clear understanding of the need for change.
Initially, your work was greeted with little confidence or enthusiasm by the company’s "old guard" among both the executive team and frontline personnel working with data and interfacing with clients. Through the use of metrics that showed the costs not only of the breaches that had occurred, but also projections of the costs that easily could occur given the current state of operations, you soon had the leaders and key decision-makers largely on your side. Many of the other employees were more resistant, but face-to-face meetings with each department and the development of a baseline privacy training program achieved sufficient "buy-in" to begin putting the proper procedures into place.
Now, privacy protection is an accepted component of all current operations involving personal or protected data and must be part of the end product of any process of technological development. While your approach is not systematic, it is fairly effective.
You are left contemplating:
What must be done to maintain the program and develop it beyond just a data breach prevention
program? How can you build on your success?
What are the next action steps?
What stage of the privacy operational life cycle best describes Consolidated’s current privacy program?
- A . Assess.
- B . Protect.
- C . Respond.
- D . Sustain.
An organization is establishing a mission statement for its privacy program.
Which of the following statements would be the best to use?
- A . This privacy program encourages cross-organizational collaboration which will stop all data breaches
- B . Our organization was founded in 2054 to reduce the chance of a future disaster like the one that occurred ten years ago. All individuals from our area of the country should be concerned about a future disaster. However, with our privacy program, they should not be concerned about the misuse of their information.
- C . The goal of the privacy program is to protect the privacy of all individuals who support our organization. To meet this goal, we must work to comply with all applicable privacy laws.
- D . In the next 20 years, our privacy program should be able to eliminate 80% of our current breaches. To do this, everyone in our organization must complete our annual privacy training course and all personally identifiable information must be inventoried.