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
If an organization maintains a separate ethics office, to whom would its officer typically report to in order to retain the greatest degree of independence?
- A . The Board of Directors.
- B . The Chief Financial Officer.
- C . The Human Resources Director.
- D . The organization’s General Counsel.
SCENARIO
Please use the following to answer the next QUESTION:
It’s just what you were afraid of. Without consulting you, the information technology director at your organization launched a new initiative to encourage employees to use personal devices for conducting business. The initiative made purchasing a new, high-specification laptop computer an attractive option, with discounted laptops paid for as a payroll deduction spread over a year of paychecks. The organization is also paying the sales taxes. It’s a great deal, and after a month, more than half the organization’s employees have signed on and acquired new laptops. Walking through the facility, you see them happily customizing and comparing notes on their new computers, and at the end of the day, most take their laptops with them, potentially carrying personal data to their homes or other unknown locations. It’s enough to give you data- protection nightmares, and you’ve pointed out to the information technology Director and many others in the organization the potential hazards of this new practice, including the inevitability of eventual data loss or theft.
Today you have in your office a representative of the organization’s marketing department who shares with you, reluctantly, a story with potentially serious consequences. The night before, straight from work, with laptop in hand, he went to the Bull and Horn Pub to play billiards with his friends. A fine night of sport and socializing began, with the laptop "safely" tucked on a bench, beneath his jacket. Later that night, when it was time to depart, he retrieved the jacket, but the laptop was gone. It was not beneath the bench or on another bench nearby. The waitstaff had not seen it. His friends were not playing a joke on him. After a sleepless night, he confirmed it this morning, stopping by the pub to talk to the cleanup crew. They had not found it. The laptop was missing. Stolen, it seems. He looks at you, embarrassed and upset.
You ask him if the laptop contains any personal data from clients, and, sadly, he nods his head, yes. He believes it contains files on about 100 clients, including names, addresses and governmental identification numbers. He sighs and places his head in his hands in despair.
What should you do first to ascertain additional information about the loss of data?
- A . Interview the person reporting the incident following a standard protocol.
- B . Call the police to investigate even if you are unsure a crime occurred.
- C . Investigate the background of the person reporting the incident.
- D . Check company records of the latest backups to see what data may be recoverable.
SCENARIO
Please use the following to answer the next question:
Liam is the newly appointed information technology (IT) compliance manager at Mesa, a US based outdoor clothing brand with a global E-commerce presence. During his second week, he is contacted by the company’s IT audit manager, who informs him that the auditing team will be conducting a review of Mesa’s privacy compliance risk in a month.
A bit nervous about the audit, Liam asks his boss what his predecessor had completed related to privacy compliance before leaving the company. Liam is told that a consent management tool had been added to the website and they commissioned a privacy risk evaluation from a small consulting firm last year that determined that their risk exposure was relatively low given their current control environment. After reading the consultant’s report, Liam realized that the scope of the assessment was limited to breach notification laws in the US and the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
Not wanting to let down his new team, Liam kept his concerns about the report to himself and figured he could try to put some additional controls into place before the audit. Having some privacy compliance experience in his last role, Liam thought he might start by having discussions with the E-commerce and marketing teams.
The E-commerce Director informed him that they were still using the cookie consent tool forcibly placed on the home screen by the CIO, but could not understand the point since their office was not located in California or Europe. The marketing director touted his department’s success with purchasing email lists and taking a shotgun approach to direct marketing. Both directors highlighted their tracking tools on the website to enhance customer experience while learning more about where else the customer had shopped. The more people Liam met with, the more it became apparent that privacy awareness and the general control environment at Mesa needed help.
With three weeks before the audit, Liam updated Mesa’s Privacy Notice himself, which was taken and revised from a competitor’s website. He also wrote policies and procedures outlining the roles and responsibilities for privacy within Mesa and distributed the document to all departments he knew of with access to personal information.
During this time. Liam also filled the backlog of data subject requests for deletion that had been sent to him by the customer service manager. Liam worked with application owners to remove these individual’s information and order history from the customer relationship management (CRM) tool, the enterprise resource planning (ERP). the data warehouse and the email server.
At the audit kick-off meeting. Liam explained to his boss and her team that there may still be some room for improvement, but he thought the risk had been mitigated to an appropriate level based on
the work he had done thus far.
After the audit had been completed, the audit manager and Liam met to discuss her team’s findings, and much to his dismay. Liam was told that none of the work he had completed prior to the audit followed best practices for governance and risk mitigation. In fact, his actions only opened the company up to additional risk and scrutiny. Based on these findings. Liam worked with external counsel and an established privacy consultant to develop a remediation plan.
Given the feedback provided to Liam after the audit, what maturity level would the audit team most likely have assigned to Mesa’s privacy policies and procedures if they use the Privacy Maturity Model (PMM)?
- A . Repeatable.
- B . Ad-hoc.
- C . Defined.
- D . Managed.
Charge your company 20% of the cost of any credit restoration.
You execute the contract and the enrollment invitations are emailed to the 2000 individuals. Three days later you sit down and document all that went well and all that could have gone better. You put it in a file to reference the next time an incident occurs.
Regarding the notification, which of the following would be the greatest concern?
- A . Informing the affected individuals that data from other individuals may have also been affected.
- B . Collecting more personally identifiable information than necessary to provide updates to the affected individuals.
- C . Using a postcard with the logo of the vendor who make the mistake instead of your company’s logo.
- D . Trusting a vendor to send out a notice when they already failed once by not encrypting the database.
Which of the following is TRUE about a PIA (Privacy Impact Analysis)?
- A . Any project that involves the use of personal data requires a PIA
- B . A Data Protection Impact Analysis (DPIA) process includes a PIA
- C . The PIA must be conducted at the early stages of the project lifecycle
- D . The results from a previous information audit can be leveraged in a PIA process
Which statement is FALSE regarding the use of technical security controls?
- A . Technical security controls are part of a data governance strategy.
- B . Technical security controls deployed for one jurisdiction often satisfy another jurisdiction.
- C . Most privacy legislation lists the types of technical security controls that must be implemented.
- D . A person with security knowledge should be involved with the deployment of technical security controls.
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 to prevent the Finnish vendor from transferring data to another party?
- A . Restrict the vendor to using company security controls
- B . Offer company resources to assist with the processing
- C . Include transfer prohibitions in the vendor contract
- D . Lock the data down in its current location
An executive for a multinational online retail company in the United States is looking for guidance in developing her company’s privacy program beyond what is specifically required by law.
What would be the most effective resource for the executive to consult?
- A . Internal auditors.
- B . Industry frameworks.
- C . Oversight organizations.
- D . Breach notifications from competitors.
SCENARIO
Please use the following to answer the next QUESTION:
Natalia, CFO of the Nationwide Grill restaurant chain, had never seen her fellow executives so anxious. Last week, a data processing firm used by the company reported that its system may have been hacked, and customer data such as names, addresses, and birthdays may have been compromised. Although the attempt was proven unsuccessful, the scare has prompted several Nationwide Grill executives to Question the company’s privacy program at today’s meeting.
Alice, a vice president, said that the incident could have opened the door to lawsuits, potentially damaging Nationwide Grill’s market position. The Chief Information Officer (CIO), Brendan, tried to assure her that even if there had been an actual breach, the chances of a successful suit against the company were slim. But Alice remained unconvinced.
Spencer C a former CEO and currently a senior advisor C said that he had always warned against the use of contractors for data processing. At the very least, he argued, they should be held contractually liable for telling customers about any security incidents. In his view, Nationwide Grill should not be forced to soil the company name for a problem it did not cause.
One of the business development (BD) executives, Haley, then spoke, imploring everyone to see reason.
"Breaches can happen, despite organizations’ best efforts," she remarked. "Reasonable preparedness is key." She reminded everyone of the incident seven years ago when the large grocery chain Tinkerton’s had its financial information compromised after a large order of Nationwide Grill frozen dinners. As a long-time BD executive with a solid understanding of Tinkerton’s’s corporate culture, built up through many years of cultivating relationships, Haley was able to successfully manage the company’s incident response.
Spencer replied that acting with reason means allowing security to be handled by the security functions within the company C not BD staff. In a similar way, he said, Human Resources (HR) needs to do a better job training employees to prevent incidents. He pointed out that Nationwide Grill employees are overwhelmed with posters, emails, and memos from both HR and the ethics department related to the company’s privacy program. Both the volume and the duplication of information means that it is often ignored altogether.
Spencer said, "The company needs to dedicate itself to its privacy program and set regular in-person trainings for all staff once a month."
Alice responded that the suggestion, while well-meaning, is not practical. With many locations, local HR departments need to have flexibility with their training schedules. Silently, Natalia agreed.
The senior advisor, Spencer, has a misconception regarding?
- A . The amount of responsibility that a data controller retains.
- B . The appropriate role of an organization’s security department.
- C . The degree to which training can lessen the number of security incidents.
- D . The role of Human Resources employees in an organization’s privacy program.
What is the main purpose in notifying data subjects of a data breach?
- A . To avoid financial penalties and legal liability
- B . To enable regulators to understand trends and developments that may shape the law
- C . To ensure organizations have accountability for the sufficiency of their security measures
- D . To allow individuals to take any actions required to protect themselves from possible consequences