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Amy Bennett
Executive Editor

FTC appoints privacy expert Lorrie Cranor as Chief Technologist

Opinion
Dec 04, 20152 mins
CareersGovernment

Cranor, who is the director of the Carnegie Mellon Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory and a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Board of Directors will join the FTC staff in January.

Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez has appointed Lorrie Faith Cranor as the agency’s Chief Technologist, succeeding Ashkan Soltani.

Cranor is the director of the Carnegie Mellon Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Board of Directors.

She has authored over 150 research papers on online privacy and usable security, and has played a central role in establishing the usable privacy and security research community, including her founding of the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security. Her current research includes, Usable Privacy Policy Projectusable and secure passwordsprivacy decision makinguser-controllable security and privacyusable cyber trust indicators.

Cranor has consulted for companies and non-profits on privacy policies, P3P, usable privacy and security, and technology policy and has served as an expert witness in patent litigation and in privacy cases, and in cases challenging the constitutionality of Internet harmful-to-minors laws, including the ACLU’s successful challenge to the 1998 Children’s Online Protection Act.

Cranor holds a doctorate in Engineering and Policy, masters’ degrees in Computer Science, and Technology and Human Affairs, and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering and Public Policy, from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Cranor will join the FTC staff in January and be primarily responsible for advising Chairwoman Ramirez and the Commission on developing technology and policy matters. Cranor is currently a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, where she directs the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory. She was previously a researcher at AT&T Labs Research and has also taught at the Stern School of Business at New York University.