Protecting privacy and civil liberties cannot and should not be left to the lawyers. Given the rapid pace of technological innovation and the glacially slow development of corresponding legal doctrine, it falls to engineers and technologists to consider privacy and civil liberties issues as they design, build, and sell their ideas. In the course of this audience discussion, we will explore a hypothetical situation involving both business and design choices and consider the challenges in charting the most ethical course.
Practical Privacy: Incorporating Privacy into Engineering and Business Decision-making
John joined Palantir Technologies in September 2010 as the company’s first Civil Liberties Engineer. Previously, John served for nearly a decade as an advisor in the United States Senate. He began his career in the Senate as an aide to Senator Peter Fitzgerald before joining the staff of former presidential candidate and member of the Senate Republican leadership, Senator Lamar Alexander. While working for Senator Alexander on issues ranging from the federal budget to homeland security, John attended law school at Georgetown University. He earned his law degree shortly after joining the staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. As Counsel to Ranking Member Senator Susan Collins, John handled the Committee’s intelligence and privacy and civil liberties portfolios. He conducted oversight of numerous programs within the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. intelligence community as well as investigations into intelligence failures that led to the attacks at Fort Hood and the failed 2009 Christmas Day bombings.
As a Civil Liberties Engineer at Palantir, John has worked with customers all over the world, helping them to develop data protection practices that make the best use of Palantir’s privacy and civil liberties protective capabilities.