Albert Gidari is the Director of Privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. He was a partner for over 20 years at Perkins Coie LLP, achieving a top-ranking in privacy law by Chambers. He negotiated the first-ever "privacy by design" consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission on behalf of Google, which required the establishment of a comprehensive privacy program including third party compliance audits. Mr. Gidari is a recognized expert on electronic surveillance law; and, long an advocate for greater transparency in government demands for user data, he brought the first public lawsuit before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, seeking the right of providers to disclose the volume of national security demands received. Mr. Gidari earned an LLM from University of Washington School of Law, his law degree from George Mason University School of Law, and his undergraduate degree from Tulane University.
Hi Res Photo of Albert Gidari
"Smart Cities" Are Too Smart for Your Privacy
By Albert Gidari on February 20, 2017 at 5:39 pm
No one wants to live in a “dumb” city. But I question whether anyone ought to want to live in a really smart city either. I’d prefer to just live in a smarter city -- one that puts my privacy and security first before rolling out ubiquitous sensors and broad-scale data collection in the name of some larger public good.
Wiretap Reports Not So Transparent
By Albert Gidari on January 26, 2017 at 10:04 am
I have been writing for some time about the huge discrepancy between the number of wiretaps reported annually by the Administrative Office (AO) of the US Courts and the numbers reported by phone companies and online service providers in their transparency reports. It never occurred to me that the AO might be at fault for some of the apparent under-reporting of wiretaps.
Should Government Agencies Know Precisely Where You Get Picked Up and Dropped Off?
By Albert Gidari on January 4, 2017 at 8:47 am
I submitted comments this week to the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission as the Director of Privacy at the Center for Internet and Society (CIS). The emergence of new transportation networks and platforms certainly presents privacy challenges and the private companies in these emerging markets certainly have had their share of privacy mis-steps.
My Dissent from Professor Kerr's Opinion on the Consequences of the Microsoft Ireland Case
By Albert Gidari on December 1, 2016 at 10:05 am
In his November 29, 2016, Volokh Conspiracy post, Professor Orin Kerr raised some important points about the unintended or unanticipated consequences of the so-called Microsoft Ireland case.
Wiretap Numbers Still Don't Add Up
By Albert Gidari on November 29, 2016 at 11:15 am
Earlier this year, I wrote that the wiretap numbers reported by the Administrative Office (AO) of the US Courts in its 2014 Wiretap Report and those disclosed in transparency reports by the major telecommunications companies just didn’t add up. While the AO reported 3554 wiretaps in 2014, the four major U.S. carriers reported 10,712 wiretaps implemented for the same period -- a threefold discrepancy.
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Amazon's New Echo Device Will Be Watching
"It is inevitable Amazon and others would add a visual component to smart speakers to better monetize them, said Albert Gidari, director for privacy at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.
"The question is: What is the screen going to see, and who is going to see it?" Mr. Gidari said. Those are important questions, even with current privacy controls, he said."
How to Disappear? Is it possible to move through a smart city undetected?
Even in the middle of major city, it’s possible to go off the grid. Last year, the Atlantic profiled a family in Washington, D.C., that harvests their entire household energy from a single, 1-kilowatt solar panel on a patch of cement in their backyard. Insulated, light-blocking blinds keep upstairs bedrooms cool at the peak of summer; in winter, the family gets by with low-tech solutions, like curling up with hot water bottles. “It’s a bit like camping,” one family member said.
Will the Yahoo breach indictments be an effective hacker deterrent?
"Albert Gidari, director of privacy for the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, said, at best, an "indictment is better than silence or inaction," but may not be an effective hacker deterrent.
With the latest WikiLeaks revelations about the CIA – is privacy really dead?
"“I don’t think there’s been absolute privacy in the history of mankind,” said Albert Gidari, director of privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. “You walk out in public and it’s no longer private. You shout from one window to another and someone will hear you in conversation.”
“At the same time things are more intrusive, persistent, searchable, they never die. So our conception of what is or isn’t risk from a privacy perspective does change and evolve over time.”"
The Startup That’s in Charge of the Biggest Private Satellite Fleet
"The higher resolution will likely raise privacy and security concerns, however, just as Google’s Street View did in its early days. Making public precise data on the locations of cell towers, nuclear power plants, or valuable antiquities, for instance, could pose obvious security risks. Albert Gidari, director of privacy at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, predicts that Planet Labs will eventually need clear mechanisms for handling complaints and requests to blur or delete images.
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Policy, Law, and Technology in the Current Crypto Wars (Past Event)
To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Stanford Cryptography Policy Project, we are holding an afternoon event highlighting our research and accomplishments over the past year. As our keynote speakers, it is our pleasure to welcome the Honorable Stephen W. Smith, Magistrate Judge of the Southern District of Texas, and Paul S. Grewal, former Magistrate Judge of the Northern District of California.
General Data Protection Regulation Seminar (Past Event)
After a lengthy legislative process, the GDPR is finally ready. As the most significant overhaul of data privacy laws in Europe in twenty years, it will have a profound impact on Silicon Valley technology companies offering online services in Europe. The recently announced Privacy Shield will affect most US organisations that receive personal information from Europe.