Alessandro Acquisti

Alessandro Acquisti is an associate professor at Carnegie 

Mellon University’s Heinz College, the co-director of CMU 

Center for Behavioral Decision Research, and a member 

of the National Academies’ Committee on public response 

to alerts and warnings using social media and associated 

privacy considerations. Mr. Acquisti researches the 

economics of privacy. His manuscripts have spearheaded 

the application of behavioral economics to the analysis of 

privacy decision making, and the study of privacy risks and 

disclosure behavior in online social networks. Mr. Acquisti 

has been the recipient of the PET Award for Outstanding 

Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies, the IBM Best 

Academic Privacy Faculty Award, and multiple best paper 

awards. Mr. Acquisti holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and 

held visiting positions at the Universities of Rome, Paris, 

Freiburg, and Harvard University.

Joseph J. Atick, Ph.D.

Dr. Joseph J. Atick is the vice chairman and the 

co-founder of the International Biometrics & Identification 

Association (IBIA). He is a recognized early pioneer in the 

industry, having been one of the original inventors of face 

recognition technology and the co-founder and leader of 

several companies in the identity management industry, 

including Visionics, the first company to commercialize 

face recognition, and Identix, the first multi-biometric 

company, which merged in 2006 with a leading 

credentialing company to form L-1 Identity Solutions, 

where he served as the chief strategy officer up until 

2011 when the company was acquired by Morpho where 

he currently works in corporate strategy. Dr. Atick holds a 

Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Stanford University.

Julie Brill

Julie Brill was sworn in as a commissioner of the Federal 

Trade Commission April 6, 2010, to a term that expires on 

September 25, 2016. Since joining the Commission, Ms. 

Brill has worked actively on issues most affecting today’s 

consumers, including protecting consumers’ privacy, 

encouraging appropriate advertising substantiation, 

guarding consumers from financial fraud, and maintaining 

Bios
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competition in industries involving high tech and health 

care. Before she became a commissioner, Ms. Brill was 

the senior deputy attorney general and chief of consumer 

protection and antitrust for the North Carolina Department 

of Justice, a position she held from February 2009 to April 

2010. Commissioner Brill has also been a lecturer-in-law 

at Columbia University’s School of Law. Prior to her move 

to the North Carolina Department of Justice, Commissioner 

Brill was an assistant attorney general for consumer 

protection and antitrust for the state of Vermont for over 

20 years, from 1988 to 2009. Commissioner Brill has 

received several national awards for her work protecting 

consumers. She has testified before Congress, published 

numerous articles, and served on many national expert 

panels focused on consumer protection issues such as 

pharmaceuticals, privacy, credit reporting, data security 

breaches, and tobacco. Commissioner Brill has also served 

as a vice-chair of the Consumer Protection Committee of 

the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association. Prior 

to her career in law enforcement, Commissioner Brill was 

an associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison 

in New York from 1987 to 1988. She clerked for Vermont 

Federal District Court Judge Franklin S. Billings, Jr. from 

1985 to 1986. Commissioner Brill graduated, magna 

cum laude, from Princeton University, and from New York 

University School of Law, where she had a Root-Tilden 

Scholarship for her commitment to public service.

Daniel Caron 

Daniel Caron is legal counsel for the Office of the Privacy 

Commissioner of Canada. Mr. Caron provides the Office 

with strategic and legal advice, offers guidance with 

respect to the interpretation and application of Canada’s 

two federal privacy statutes, and regularly represents the 

commissioner before courts at various levels. In 2009, Mr. 

Caron participated in a three month fellowship program 

working alongside attorneys from the Bureau of Consumer 

Protection of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and 

gained invaluable insight as to how consumer privacy 

is protected in the United States. Mr. Caron studied the 

common law in French at the Université de Moncton, in 

New Brunswick, and holds a degree in political sciences 

from the University of Calgary.

Fred Carter

Since 2004, Fred Carter has served the Ontario Information 

& Privacy Commissioner (IPC) in a variety of demanding 

roles as senior policy and technology advisor. His primary 

responsibilities involve providing strategic research, 

information, and advisory services to IPC commissioners, 

management and staff on a wide range of technology 

and privacy policy issues. He contributed to recent IPC 

publications on privacy by design, identity theft, identity 

management, radio frequency identification (RFID), 

biometric encryption, cloud computing, and the impacts of 

Web 2.0 technologies and services. Mr. Carter also served 

the privacy commissioner of Canada and other privateand public-sector organizations in similar policy capacities.

Chris Conley

Chris Conley is the Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow at 

the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, 

where he focuses on the intersection of privacy, free 

speech, and emerging technology. His current focus is 

Demand Your dotRights (http://dotRights.org), a multifaceted campaign to protect individual privacy rights in a 

world of pervasive consumer technology. Prior to joining 

the ACLU of Northern California, Mr. Conley was a fellow 
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with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard 

University, where he researched international Internet 

surveillance. He previously worked as a software developer 

and data architect for various corporations and non-profits. 

Mr. Conley holds a B.S.E. in electrical engineering from the 

University of Michigan, a S.M. in computer science from 

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a J.D. from 

Harvard Law School.

Andrew Cummins

Andrew Cummins is a strategy expert in the technology 

and defense markets. Working in multiple strategic 

development roles at Boeing Defense, Space & Security, he 

developed and deployed numerous initiatives that helped 

position the firm as the premiere aerospace company in 

the world. In Mr. Cummins’ current role, he has developed 

SceneTap’s impressive expansion and growth strategy. 

Mr. Cummins and the SceneTap team are on the forefront 

of leveraging leading edge facial-detection technologies 

and applying them to both data analytics and social media 

industries. Mr. Cummins, who currently resides in Austin, 

TX, was born in St. Louis, MO. He has received an M.B.A. 

from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University 

and a M.G.M. from the Thunderbird School of Global 

Management. 

Pam Dixon

Pam Dixon founded the World Privacy Forum in 2003. An 

author and researcher, she has written highly respected 

and influential studies in the area of privacy; she 

researched and wrote the first major report on privacy 

and digital signage and facial recognition technologies, 

The One-Way Mirror Society and led the effort to create 

the first set of collaborative consumer privacy principles 

for digital signage. She has written other highly influential 

studies in the area of medical identity theft and online 

privacy, as well as financial privacy. Recently, Ms. Dixon 

completed six months of research and privacy work in 

India, as well as co-authoring a new reference book, 

Online Privacy ( ABC-CLIO, 2011). Ms. Dixon was formerly 

a research fellow with the Privacy Foundation at Denver 

University’s Sturm School of Law.

Erin Egan

Erin Egan joined Facebook in mid-October 2011 as a 

senior policy advisor and director of privacy. Most recently, 

Ms. Egan was a partner and co-chair of Covington & 

Burling’s Global Privacy and Data Security practice group, 

where she represented technology and media companies 

on privacy and data security matters. She has been deeply 

involved in legislative and regulatory efforts to address 

privacy, data security, spam, spyware, identity theft, and 

other consumer protection issues. Ms. Egan was recently 

named as one of The American Lawyer’s “45 Under 45” 

and has been recognized by The National Law Journal for 

“laying the groundwork for a cutting-edge practice.”

Mark Eichorn

Mark Eichorn is an assistant director in the Federal Trade 

Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Division of 

Privacy and Identity Protection (DPIP), where he supervises 

privacy and data security matters. He joined DPIP at the 

end of 2009 from FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz’s office, 

where he served as an attorney advisor for Chairman 

(and previously Commissioner) Leibowitz on consumer 

protection issues. After joining the Commission in 1998, 

Mr. Eichorn worked for many years as an attorney in the 

Division of Advertising Practices and served a six month 
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stint in 2003 as an attorney advisor to FTC Commissioner 

Leary. Mr. Eichorn went to law school at the University 

of Virginia, and later clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge 

Robert Beezer before joining the Seattle firm of Mundt, 

MacGregor. He graduated from Yale University.

Harley Geiger

Harley Geiger is policy counsel at the Center for 

Democracy & Technology (CDT). Mr. Geiger’s work at CDT 

has focused on consumer privacy, health information 

technology, and national security. He is also a leading 

voice for consumer privacy in out-of-home behavioral 

advertising; serving as a member of the Standards 

Committee of the Digital Signage Federation, he led the 

trade association’s initiative to adopt privacy standards 

– which cover facial recognition. The Digital Signage 

Privacy Standards are the industry’s first set of privacy 

standards based on the full set of Fair Information 

Practices. CDT’s digital signage report and privacy 

standards are available here: http://www.cdt.org/report/

building-digital-out-home-privacy-infrastructure. For 

more information on Mr. Geiger and his work, please visit 

http://cdt.org/personnel/harley-geiger#.

Beth Givens

Beth Givens is founder and director of the Privacy Rights 

Clearinghouse, established in 1992. The PRC is a nonprofit 

consumer information and advocacy program located in 

San Diego, CA. Its website provides extensive resources 

and tips for consumers on a variety of informational 

privacy issues. Ms. Givens has participated in many public 

policy task forces at the state and federal levels. She is 

often interviewed by the media. Prior to her work as a 

consumer advocate, she was a librarian specializing in 

resource sharing. Ms. Givens has a Master’s degree from 

the University of Southern California Annenberg School 

for Communication, and a Master’s degree in library and 

information services from the University of Denver. She 

is a member of the International Association of Privacy 

Professionals.

Ralph Gross

Ralph Gross is a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon 

University’s Heinz College, working with Professor 

Alessandro Acquisti. He is also founding partner and 

chief scientist of Disruptive Robotics, LLC and BluPanda, 

LLC. Mr. Gross’s research interests are in the areas of 

computer vision, biometrics, and data privacy with a focus 

on face processing, including face modeling, tracking, 

and recognition. Mr. Gross’s work with Professor Acquisti 

has been featured in national and international media 

outlets, including the Economist, the New York Times, 

the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Der Spiegel, and CNN. Mr. 

Gross holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree from Carnegie 

Mellon University and a Master’s degree (Diplom) from 

the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (formerly University 

of Karlsruhe).

Jai Michael Haissman

Jai Michael Haissman is the founder and CEO of the 

award winning company Affective Interfaces (AI), builders 

of emotion sensing technology. A 17-year clinical trauma 

expert with training in the neuroscience of emotion 

theory, attachment theory, and body oriented therapy, Mr. 

Haissman brings a deep recognition for the role of emotion 

in communication, learning, mentation, and happiness. 

When advances in affective computing realized threshold 

accuracies, Mr. Haissman founded Affective Interfaces to 
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build the emotion layer of the Internet. Bringing a unique 

perspective to applications and potential, he formed AI to 

further a new means of human/computer interaction and 

user interface. Mr. Haissman has mentored with some 

of the best minds in trauma and clinical neuroscience, 

including Dr. Peter Levine, and was invited to join a 

seminar and write with Dr. Allan N. Schore. Mr. Haissman 

holds a B.A. in philosophy from UCSC, is a somatic 

experiencing practitioner, and has taught and presented 

nationally and internationally.

Gil Hirsch

Gil Hirsch is the co-founder and CEO of face.com, the 

largest provider of face recognition technology for web and 

mobile services. Before founding face.com, Mr. Hirsch held 

multiple research and development, product and sales 

executive roles at Amdocs (DOX), XACCT Technologies 

and Telrad Networks. Mr. Hirsch is also the co-founder of 

the garage geeks community in Israel, which hosts global 

industry leader events with Israel’s hi-tech community, and 

drive non-commercial innovation activities.

Brian Huseman

Brian Huseman serves as senior policy counsel at Intel’s 

Washington, DC, office where he focuses on a variety 

of issues dealing with privacy, marketing, and trade 

policy. Mr. Huseman joined Intel from the Federal Trade 

Commission (FTC), where he most recently served as 

chief of staff. Prior to that position, Mr. Huseman served 

as an advisor to the chairman on a variety of consumer 

protection issues. He previously was a staff attorney in the 

FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection where he litigated 

Internet fraud cases and was the FTC’s point person on 

spam. Mr. Huseman joined the FTC in 2001 after spending 

almost two years at the Department of Justice, Criminal 

Division. Mr. Huseman also served as a judicial law clerk to 

the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma 

and to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Huseman 

has a law degree and a B.A. degree in political science.

Laureen Kapin

Laureen Kapin has practiced consumer protection law 

with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for 11 years. She 

serves as counsel for International Consumer Protection 

in the Office of International Affairs (OIA). In that role, she 

assists the Commission’s litigators when their matters 

involve international targets, evidence or assets. She 

also fights cross-border fraud by facilitating joint law 

enforcement efforts with the FTC’s foreign partners. 

Through her work with the Department of Justice’s Office 

of Foreign Litigation, she ensures that the FTC works 

closely with the entity responsible for litigating on behalf 

of the FTC abroad. Before joining OIA, Ms. Kapin served 

as senior counsel in the FTC’s Enforcement Division. She 

targeted defendants acting in contempt of prior court 

orders and also led many deceptive advertising cases 

involving diet and exercise products. 

Amanda Koulousias

Amanda Koulousias is an attorney in the Division of 

Privacy and Identity Protection at the Federal Trade 

Commission (FTC) and works on privacy, data security, 

and Fair Credit Reporting Act issues. Prior to joining the 

FTC in 2009, she worked during law school as an FTC 

summer law clerk and held internships at the Brady 

Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the New Jersey Office 

of the Child Advocate, and the Executive Office of the 

President, Office of Administration. She earned her law 
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degree from the George Washington University Law School 

and her undergraduate degree from Ramapo College of 

New Jersey. 

Jon Leibowitz

Jon Leibowitz was designated to serve as chairman of the 

Federal Trade Commission on March 2, 2009, by President 

Barack H. Obama. Chairman Leibowitz was previously 

sworn in as a commissioner in September 3, 2004, 

following his nomination by the president and confirmation 

by the U.S. Senate. In joining the Commission, Chairman 

Leibowitz resumed a long career of public service. He was 

the Democratic chief counsel and staff director for the U.S. 

Senate Antitrust Subcommittee from 1997 to 2000, where 

he focused on competition policy and telecommunications 

matters. He served as chief counsel and staff director for 

the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Technology 

from 1995 to 1996 and the Senate Subcommittee on 

Juvenile Justice from 1991 to 1994. In addition, he served 

as chief counsel to Senator Herb Kohl from 1989 to 2000. 

Chairman Leibowitz worked for Senator Paul Simon from 

1986 to 1987. In the private sector, Chairman Leibowitz 

served most recently as Vice President for Congressional 

Affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America – 

from 2000 to 2004 – and worked as an attorney in private 

practice in Washington from 1984 to 1986. A Phi Beta 

Kappa graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a B.A. 

in American History (1980), Chairman Leibowitz graduated 

from the New York University School of Law in 1984. 

Jessica Lyon

Jessica Lyon is an attorney in the Division of Privacy 

and Identity Protection at the Federal Trade Commission 

(FTC). She received a B.A. in philosophy, politics, and law 

from Binghamton University and a J.D. from Berkeley 

Law. At Berkeley, she participated in the Samuelson Law, 

Technology, and Public Policy Clinic and was an article 

editor and assistant managing editor of the Berkley 

Technology Law Journal. Ms. Lyon also worked as an FTC 

summer law clerk and as a summer intern in the west 

coast office of Consumers’ Union where she focused on 

credit and finance issues. Prior to law school, Ms. Lyon 

spent two years at Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York 

working on conditions of confinement cases for inmates in 

New York State correctional facilities. 

Maneesha Mithal

Maneesha Mithal is the associate director of the 

Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Privacy and 

Identity Protection. In this capacity, she has supervised 

enforcement and policy work in the areas of privacy, data 

security, behavioral advertising, social networking, and 

consumer reporting. Since joining the Commission in 

1999, she has held numerous positions, including assistant 

director of the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, 

chief of staff of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, and 

assistant director of the International Division of Consumer 

Protection. Prior to joining the Federal Trade Commission 

in 1999, Ms. Mithal was an attorney at the Washington 

law firm of Covington & Burling, where she practiced 

in the commercial litigation, international litigation, and 

legislative areas. Ms. Mithal earned her law degree 

from the Georgetown University Law Center and her 

undergraduate degree from Georgetown University.

Manas Mohapatra

Manas Mohapatra is an attorney in the Division of Privacy 

and Identity Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, 
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focusing on issues related to privacy, data security, identity 

theft, enforcement, and outreach in these areas. Before 

joining the FTC, he served as a litigation ssociate in the 

Washington, DC, office of Goodwin Procter LLP. He also 

served as a judicial law clerk for the Hon. José Antonio 

Fusté, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District 

of Puerto Rico. Prior to entering law school, he worked as a 

senior web developer for Nickelodeon Online. He received 

a B.A. in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University and a 

J.D. cum laude from Northwestern University Law School.

Benjamin Petrosky

Benjamin Petrosky is a Product Counsel for Google Inc., 

focusing on consumer products including Google+ and 

Picasa/Photos. In that role, Mr. Petrosky counsels product 

teams on Internet law, privacy, and intellectual property 

issues and is speaking several times this winter on related 

topics. Prior to Google, Mr. Petrosky worked in private 

practice in New York. He is a graduate of Brown University 

and Columbia University School of Law.

Dr. P. Jonathon Phillips

Dr. Jonathon Phillips is a leading technologist in the fields 

of computer vision, biometrics, and face recognition. He is 

at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), 

where he runs challenge problems and evaluations to 

advance biometric technology. His previous efforts include 

the Iris Challenge Evaluations (ICE), the Face Recognition 

Vendor Test (FRVT) 2006 and the Face Recognition Grand 

Challenge and FERET. From 2000-2004, Dr. Phillips was 

assigned to the Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency. For his work on the FRVT 2002 he was awarded 

the Department of Commerce Gold Medal. His work has 

been reported in the New York Times and the Economist. 

He has appeared on NPR’s Science Friday show. He is a 

fellow of the Institute of Electical and Electronics Engineers 

and International Advanced Robotics Programme.

Simon Rice

Simon Rice became the principal policy adviser 

(technology) at the Information Commissioner’s Office in 

the United Kingdom in February 2011, with responsibility 

to lead and develop the technical and information security 

expertise within the office. Mr. Rice achieves this by 

supporting the technical aspects of complaints received 

and also the data breach investigations undertaken. Mr. 

Rice also monitors the technology environment to identify 

those on the horizon which may impact on information 

rights. Between 2005 and 2011, Mr. Rice was a database 

and software developer at the Health and Safety 

Laboratory, the principal source of scientific support for 

the Health and Safety Executive. Prior to joining the Health 

and Safety Laboratory, Mr. Rice studied for his Ph.D. at the 

University of Manchester in the field of data mining. His 

research utilised a range of machine learning techniques 

to extract information from large collections of numeric 

and textual data. 

Jessica Rich

Jessica Rich is currently deputy director of the Federal 

Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. 

Prior to that, Ms. Rich served for 11 years as assistant 

and then associate director in the FTC’s Division of 

Privacy and Identity Protection. In those positions, she 

handled or oversaw a wide variety of privacy and data 

security matters, including: (1) enforcement actions 

against such companies as ChoicePoint, Microsoft, and 

TJX; (2) rulemakings to develop the FTC’s Safeguards, 
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Disposal, Children’s Online Privacy, and Personal Health 

Records Rules; (3) testimony to Congress on proposed 

legislation and related issues; and (4) public workshops 

and policy initiatives, such as the FTC’s “Exploring Privacy” 

Roundtables and Behavioral Advertising Project. Prior 

to joining the FTC’s privacy division, Ms. Rich served as 

counsel to the Bureau Director and was an attorney in 

private practice. She graduated from NYU Law School and 

Harvard University.

Daniel J. Solove

Daniel J. Solove is the John Marshall Harlan Research 

Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law 

School. He is also senior policy advisor at Hogan Lovells. 

Additionally, he is the founder of TeachPrivacy, a company 

that helps schools with training and education about 

privacy issues as well as developing a comprehensive 

privacy program. One of the world’s leading experts 

in privacy law, Mr. Solove is the author of numerous 

books, including Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff 

Between Privacy and Security (Yale 2011), Privacy Law 

Fundamentals (IAPP 2011), Understanding Privacy (Harvard 

2008), and The Future of Reputation: Gossip and Rumor in 

the Information Age (Yale 2007). Additionally, he is also the 

author of a textbook, Information Privacy Law, as well as 

more than 40 articles.

John Verdi

John Verdi is senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy 

Information Center (EPIC) and the director of EPIC’s Open 

Government Project. His work focuses on legal issues 

relating to consumer privacy, digital security, government 

surveillance, and open government. He supervises EPIC’s 

litigation program, filing amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. 

Supreme Court and litigating civil suits concerning privacy 

and open government. He is co-editor of Litigation Under 

the Federal Open Government Laws, and regularly speaks 

on privacy issues at conferences and in the media. Prior 

to joining EPIC, Mr. Verdi was a civil litigator in Washington 

D.C., working on cases involving unfair and deceptive 

trade practices, digital information misappropriation, and 

Administrative Procedure Act claims. Prior to his career 

as a lawyer, Mr. Verdi worked as a computer programmer 

on a variety of projects, including several applications 

involving secure financial data. He also advised the 

National Hockey League on technology issues, including 

data collection under the Children’s Online Privacy 

Protection Act. Mr. Verdi is a Harvard Law School graduate 

and earned his B.A. in philosophy, politics, and law at 

Binghamton University.