This was how it began: not with a dramatic revelation, but with the absurdity of an organisation treating privacy like a promotional campaign.

The countdown clock was running.

Thirty days.

Alex Harper stared at the screen, half amused, half horrified.
It was bureaucratic theatre masquerading as governance, and it said more about the company than the words themselves ever could.

The irony was exquisite. Marketing was now fronting data protection, while a company director — identity unclear, motives unknown — sat silently copied in. The whole structure of authority bent into a shape that felt accidental, or deliberate, or both.

It was signed by Head of Marketing & Online Sales.

And beneath her name, the company’s mantra blazed in bold caps:

KNOWLEDGE | VALUE | TRANSPARENCY | TRUST