The only thing that will make politicians sit up and take notice of privacy issues is for them to experience first-hand what loss of control of their private da

The only thing that will make politicians sit up and take notice of privacy issues is for them to experience first-hand what loss of control of their private data does to someone's life - identity theft, poor decisions or benign mistakes catching up with you/being re-interpretted, merciless judgment from others, relentless targeted advertising... Especially since politicians are notoriously cagey about their private lives, this sort of experience would be quite an eye-opener.