Even as we await clarity on the implications of elections across the country, one thing is certain: privacy is not dead. To the contrary, a host of outstanding privacy issues are sure to remain top of mind for policymakers at the federal, state, local, and international levels, including: lawful access to encrypted devices and communications, children’s privacy rulemaking at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), implications of California’s new privacy law, facial recognition, algorithmic decision-making, further clarification of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), COVID-specific privacy, and the future of transatlantic data transfers, just to name a few.

That’s why ACT | The App Association is taking this opportunity to announce the second cycle of our fellowship focused on privacy law and policy. Hosted by our foundation arm, the Innovators Network Foundation, the privacy fellows engage in thought leadership and research across all of these issues and more.

The 2020-21 fellows are:

Paula J. Bruening, Founder and Principal, Casentino Strategies, LLC

Paula J. Bruening is an expert with more than 25 years of experience working on issues related to emerging technologies, privacy governance, and compliance with data protection regulation. She is counsel for Sequel Technology and IP Law, LLC, a law firm specializing in intellectual property, cybercrime, and data security law, and founder and principal of Casentino Strategies, LLC, a privacy and information policy consulting firm. Most recently, she served as director of global privacy policy at Intel Corporation, where she developed and coordinated privacy policy across the company, focusing particularly on the European Union. During her tenure with the Centre for Information Policy Leadership, she was principal drafter of consensus-based documents mapping an approach to accountability in data governance.

Ms. Bruening’s experience spans government, advocacy, and international organizations. Her writing on data protection has been published in academic and policy journals in the United States and abroad. She holds a J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Lorrie Faith Cranor, FORE Systems Professor, Director of CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University

Lorrie Faith Cranor is a leading researcher in both online privacy and usable privacy and security. She is the director and Bosch distinguished professor in security and privacy technologies of CyLab and FORE Systems professor of computer science and of engineering and public policy. She has co-authored more than 200 research papers on privacy and played a key role in building the usable privacy and security research community, having co-edited the seminal book Security and Usability (O’Reilly 2005). Professor Cranor founded the Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS). In 2016, she served as chief technologist at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. She is also a co-founder of Wombat Security Technologies, Inc., a security awareness training company. Professor Cranor holds a doctorate in engineering and policy from Washington University in St. Louis.

Jennifer Daskal, Professor of Law, Faculty Director, Tech, Law & Security Program, American University Washington College of Law

Jennifer Daskal is a professor and faculty director of the Tech, Law, Security Program at American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches and writes in the fields of cyber, national security, criminal, and constitutional law.  From 2009-2011, Professor Daskal worked as the counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Department of Justice (DOJ). Prior to joining DOJ, she was senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, worked as a staff attorney for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and clerked for the Honorable Jed S. Rakoff. She also spent two years as a national security law fellow and adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center. From 2016-2017, she was an Open Society Institute Fellow working on issues related to privacy and law enforcement access to data across borders.  She is also currently a New America ASU Future of Security Fellow.

Professor Daskal’s scholarship has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, University of Virginia Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Stanford Law Review Online, and Harvard Journal of National Security Law, among other places. She published numerous op-eds, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Slate and appeared has appeared on BBC, C-SPAN, MSNBC, and NPR, among other media outlets. She is an executive editor of the Just Security blog, an advisory board member of the Third Way’s Cyber Enforcement Initiative, and an executive editor of the Journal on National Security Law and Policy.

Eric Goldman, Professor of Law, Co-Director, High Tech Law Institute, Santa Clara University School of Law

Eric Goldman is a professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law. He also co-directs the school’s High Tech Law Institute and supervises the school’s Privacy Law Certificate. Professor Goldman teaches and publishes in the areas of internet law, intellectual property, and advertising and marketing law. He blogs on these topics at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog, which has been inducted into the ABA Journal’s “Blawg Hall of Fame.” Professor Goldman has also written extensively about the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The California State Bar’s IP Section has named him an “IP Vanguard,” and Managing IP magazine twice named him to a shortlist of “IP Thought Leaders” in North America.

Before joining the SCU faculty in 2006, he was an assistant professor at Marquette University Law School, general counsel of Epinions.com, and an internet transactional attorney at Cooley Godward LLP.  Professor Goldman holds a BA, JD, and MBA from UCLA.

Subbarao Kambhampati (Rao), Professor of Computer Science, Arizona State University

Subbarao Kambhampati (Rao) is a professor of Computer Science at Arizona State University. Professor Kambhampati teaches and studies the fundamental problems in planning and decision making, motivated in particular by the challenges of human-aware artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Kambhampati’s research, as well as his views on the progress and societal impacts of AI, are frequently featured in national and international media outlets. He has published over 250 articles on AI.

Professor Kambhampati also directs the Yochan research group, which is associated with the AI Lab at ASU. He is the recipient of a 1992 NSF Research Initiation Award, a 1994 NSF young investigator award, a 2001-2002 College of Engineering teaching excellence award, and a 2004 IBM Faculty Award. In 2004, he was named a fellow of AAAI (American Association for Artificial Intelligence, now Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence). He later served as the president of AAAI from 2016 to 2018.

Professor Kambhampati earned his bachelor’s in electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Joy Pritts, Founder, Pritts Consulting, LLC

Joy Pritts is an independent consultant helping IT companies develop and implement innovative strategies, policies, and practices on health information privacy, security, and individual access. Ms. Pritts has more than 15 years of expertise in the health information privacy field. She founded and led the Center on Medical Record Rights at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute where, among other things, she analyzed and published reports on HIPAA, the Common Rule, federal substance abuse confidentiality regulations, and state privacy and data access laws. More recently, she served as the first chief privacy officer at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In that role, Ms. Pritts provided advice to the secretary of HHS and the national coordinator for developing and implementing ONC’s privacy and security programs under the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health). She holds a J.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College

What to Expect

The fellows are already hard at work and have delivered a slew of insightful articles and commentary. A sampling of their recent work:

  • Paula Bruening penned a report and set of recommendations for policymakers as they search for a successor agreement to the recently struck-down Privacy Shield.
  • Lorrie Cranor weighed-in on the tradeoffs of digital exposure notification regimes in a new column for the Communications of the ACM.
  • Jen Daskal published a law review article in the Journal of National Security Law and Policy about digital contact tracing and how Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure might interact with various government-sanctioned health surveillance technologies.
  • Eric Goldman wrote an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle that detailed his procedural concerns with Proposition 24 (the California Privacy Rights Act).
  • Rao Kambhampati spoke at the Internet Governance Forum 2020 Global Summit about the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence powered digital health tools.
  • Joy Pritts presented her scholarship on third-party access to digital contact tracing data at Future of Privacy Forum’s Privacy and Pandemics workshop.

To learn more and follow along with our fellows’ work, please follow INF on Twitter! There is so much more to come!