WASHINGTON, DC – Today the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) announced the addition of eight members to its Advisory Board. Since its founding, EPIC has drawn on the expertise of leading scholars, experts, and advocates in the privacy, civil liberties, and cybersecurity space to inform its work. And today we are thrilled to see this group grow.
“It has never been more urgent to tackle the complex threats that emerging technologies pose to our collective right to privacy and to our democratic institutions. The work we do at EPIC builds on the expertise of scholars and thinkers in our field, and the addition of these eight inspiring leaders will bolster our advocacy and education efforts. We are thrilled that our newest group of members will bring deep expertise in AI, privacy, and surveillance issues at a time where we have real opportunities to advance policy at the state and federal level,” says EPIC Executive Director Alan Butler.
These new members will help inform EPIC’s research, advocacy, and litigation work at a time when concerns over the harms that AI and other automated tools are causing to kids, families, workers, and our economy are front and center. President Biden’s recent Executive Order on “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence” is an important next step that builds on the principles established last year in the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. We need strong, clear guardrails around the development and use of AI and that establish comprehensive privacy protections for all Americans. The use of AI driven systems across the fields of law enforcement, criminal justice, public benefits administration, education, and employment pose the most significant threats to digital civil rights in a generation. EPIC’s new members bring a wealth of knowledge and experience in educating the public and working to protect privacy and civil liberties against the various threats that exist today.
The new members are:
- John Abowd – Edmund Ezra Day Professor Emeritus of Economics, Statistics and Data Science at Cornell University. From 2016 – 2022, he served as Chief Scientist and Associate Director for Research and Methodology at the U.S Census Bureau, where he led a directorate of five research centers each devoted to domains of investigation important to the future of social and economic statistics.
- Emily M. Bender – Professor in the Department of Linguistics and faculty director of the CLMS program and the director of the Computational Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Washington. She is an Adjunct Professor in both the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School at UW, and a member of the Tech Policy Lab, Value Sensitive Design Lab, and RAISE. In September 2023 she was included in the TIME100 AI list highlighting 100 individuals advancing major conversations about how AI is reshaping the world.
- Veena Dubal – Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. Her work encompasses a range of topics, including the impact of…