The innovation environment in the San Francisco Bay Area provides a unique laboratory for the study of privacy and cybersecurity issues. With their new innovations and business models, these companies are surfacing new and challenging legal issues. The Privacy & Cybersecurity Center offers a unique forum for students, academics, practitioners, and companies to explore national and international privacy and cybersecurity issues.
In addition to creating a community for both privacy and cybersecurity attorneys to discuss current issues, the Privacy & Cybersecurity Center will support research related to national and international privacy issues in addition to emerging issues around cybersecurity.
The strength of this Center is its breadth of subject-matter expertise. The Faculty and Instructors that drive and contribute to this Center are among the world’s leading experts on the unique issues impacting the life sciences and health care areas. Notably, the Center also analyzes the impacts that the life sciences innovations are having on society, including, for example, a partnership with the Center for Technology, Justice, & the Courts to research the impact of AI technologies in the criminal justice system. The cross-pollination of this type of expertise provides a unique environment for education, research, and policy development.
We host and sponsor academic-focused events and industry-focused events—most of which are open to the public at no charge. Check out our upcoming events. As for past events, many of them are available on-demand–and free of charge—in our video library, B-CLE.
Kenneth A. Bamberger is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Law at Berkeley Law. He is an expert on government regulation and corporate compliance, especially with regard to issues of technology, free expression, and information privacy. In 2016, he and Professor Deirdre Mulligan were awarded the Privacy Leadership Award by the International Association of Privacy Professionals for their comparative study of privacy regimes and corporate privacy practices, Privacy on the Ground: Driving Corporate Behavior in the United States and Europe. His current work focuses on the governance of technology design to protect public values, the ways that digital platforms affect markets and consumers, and the meaning of cybersecurity Publications, courses, and more »
Catherine Crump is Director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic and Clinical Professor of Law. Her work focuses on the application of First and Fourth Amendment principles to government use of new technologies, in particular to government surveillance. She has litigated cases in state and federal court and testified before state legislatures, Congress, and the European Parliament. Recent projects include a focus on street-level policing, including deployment of police body-worn cameras and the use of GPS tracking on youth in the juvenile justice system. Follow her at @CatherineNCrump. Publications, courses, and more »
Chris Jay Hoofnagle is a teaching professor in the School of Law, with a dual appointment in the School of Information. He is an expert in information privacy law and teaches about regulation of technology. Hoofnagle’s research focuses on identity theft, security breaches, and consumer perceptions and attitudes towards privacy laws. He has written extensively in the fields of information privacy, the law of unfair and deceptive practices, consumer law, and identity theft. Professor Hoofnagle is co-founder of the Privacy Law Scholars Conference. Follow him at @hoofnagle. Publications, courses, and more »
Orin S. Kerr joined the faculty at Berkeley Law in July 2019 after teaching at USC Gould School of Law, the George Washington University Law School, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania. He has written more than 60 law review articles, over 40 of which have been cited in judicial opinions (including seven in US Supreme Court opinions). Professor Kerr has briefed and argued cases in the United States Supreme Court and three federal circuits and has testified six times before Congressional committees. In 2015, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Professor Kerr to serve on the Judicial Conference’s committee to review the Criminal Justice Act. After Circuit Court and Supreme Court clerkships, he served as a Special Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and as a trial attorney in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section at the US Department of Justice. Follow him @OrinKerr. Publications, courses, and more »
Deirdre K. Mulligan is a Professor in the School of Information and the School of Law (by courtesy). Her research explores legal and technical means of protecting values such as privacy, freedom of expression, and fairness in emerging technical systems. In 2017, Prof. Mulligan was appointed to a three-year term as a member of DARPA’s Information Science and Technology Study Group, the first lawyer on that body in its 30 year history. She is also currently serving a three-year term on the City of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission. Prof. Mulligan is a founding board member of the Partnership for AI; a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder initiative to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector; and Chair Emeritus of the Board of Directors of the Center for Democracy & Technology. Publications, courses, and more »
Paul Schwartz is Jefferson E. Peyser Professor of Law. His scholarship focuses on how the law has sought to regulate and shape information technology. His most frequent areas of publication concern information privacy and data security. At present, Professor Schwartz is engaged in research into comparative privacy developments in the U.S. and the European Union, cloud computing, and the interplay between state and federal privacy law. Follow him at @paulmschwartz. Publications, courses, and more »
Jennifer M. Urban is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of Policy Initiatives for the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. Her work considers how the legal, private-ordering, and social systems that govern technology interact with values such as free expression, access to knowledge, freedom to create or innovate, and privacy. With Joe Karaganis, Professor Urban conceived and directs The Takedown Project, a consortium of scholars studying takedown regimes around the world. (www.takedownproject.org). Recent research includes a three-part empirical study, with Karaganis and Brianna L. Schofield, of the DMCA notice-and-takedown system. The studies reveal notice-and-takedown’s importance to copyright holders, online service providers, and the online ecosystem, along with some weaknesses. Professor Urban’s recent paper with Mark Lemley shows that judges with more experience handling patent cases are more likely to rule for defendants. Recent papers with Chris Hoofnagle empirically question longstanding research used to support the dominant “notice and choice” regime in privacy regulations. Publications, courses, and more »
Tess Bridgeman
Co-Editor-in-Chief of Just Security, former Special Assistant to President Obama, former Associate Counsel to the President, and former Deputy Legal Adviser to the National Security Council (NSC). Specializes in foreign policy and national security policy
Lothar Determann
Partner at Baker McKenzie and author of Determann’s Field Guide to Data Privacy Law and author of California Privacy Law: Practical Guide and Commentary. Recognized as one of the top 10 copyright attorneys and top 25 IP attorneys in California by the Daily Journal.