Privacy & Civil Rights Expert Alvaro Bedoya Nominated to Federal Trade Commission
President Biden has nominated Alvaro Bedoya, founding director of the Georgetown Center on Privacy & Technology, to serve as member of the Federal Trade Commission. Bedoya will succeed Commissioner Rohit Chopra when confirmed by the Senate. As a legal scholar and advocate, Bedoya has exposed the harms and biases of facial recognition technology and argued for legislation that would prevent predatory and discriminatory targeting of online ads. Bedoya is the author of Privacy as a Civil Right, in which he details how "the burdens of government surveillance have fallen overwhelmingly on the shoulders of immigrants, heretics, people of color, the poor, and anyone else considered 'other'" and argues that privacy must be understood as a "shield that allows the unpopular and persecuted to survive and thrive." Bedoya previously served as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. "Alvaro brings more than a decade of experience in privacy and surveillance issues, including a special focus on the impact that invasive technologies have on communities of color, to an FTC that needs to quickly and dramatically ramp up its responses to these emerging threats," said Alan Butler, EPIC's Executive Director. "There is no doubt that his expertise on these issues will put the Commission in a much better position to investigate data abuses and to craft new rules to bring these invasive business practices under control."
September 13, 2021| Share:
