Mari Frank Interviews Chris Hoofnagle, Expert on Privacy Law

Chris Jay Hoofnagle is senior staff attorney to the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic and senior fellow with the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. His focus is consumer privacy law. From 2000 to 2006, he was senior counsel to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and director of the organization's West Coast office. At EPIC, he concentrated on financial services privacy, telemarketing regulation and consumer profiling. He was also a non-residential fellow with Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society for the 2005 academic year. Hoofnagle is a nationally recognized expert in information privacy law. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and the California Senate and Assembly numerous times on social security number privacy and credit transactions. The text of his written testimony is online at http://epic.org/. Hoofnagle was the author of an amicus brief in Remsburg v. Docusearch, a case in which the Supreme Court of New Hampshire held that private investigators have a duty to exercise reasonable care towards individuals being investigated, and that individuals may bring common law privacy claims against investigators who acquire personal information through deception. He also authored an amicus brief in Kehoe v. Fidelity Federal Bank and Trust, in which the 11th Circuit held that individuals do not need to demonstrate harm to collect monetary damages from invasions of privacy. The decision makes it economically viable for individuals to vindicate privacy rights in court, and resulted in a $50 million settlement including direct payments to thousands of affected plaintiffs. Chris is a regular contributor to print, radio and television articles, Hoofnagle has provided commentary for over 1,000 news stories in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, National Public Radio, ABC News and other major media outlets. (2004). http://www.law.berkeley.edu/samuelsonclinic