Mari Frank Interviews Pam Dixon, Founder of the World Privacy Forum

Author and researcher Pam Dixon founded the World Privacy Forum in November 2003. As an author and a researcher, she has consistently broken critical new ground in her work. She researched and wrote the first report on medical identity theft (May 2006), bringing that topic to the public for the first time. Medical identity theft is now a widely acknowledged issue, just two years after the report's publication. In 2008, a California law was passed based on Dixon's research, and Dixon has also worked on medical identity theft issues nationally and internationally through her non-profit work public interest research work with the World Privacy Forum. Two earlier research studies Dixon wrote on fraudulent Internet sites led to FTC enforcement actions against "imposter domains." A groundbreaking longitudinal research study Dixon wrote on job scams was the first research documentation of the problem as it impacted consumers. The report greatly increased awareness of the problem for consumers and in the job search industry, eventually leading to positive changes in the sector. She was also the principal investigator and author of the first sector-wide study of job applicant privacy, a report a year in its research that was released in November 2003. Dixon won the Consumer Excellence Award in 2008. In addition to her national and international work at the World Privacy Forum, Dixon serves as co-chair of the California Privacy and Security Advisory Board, a state level board which reports to the California Secretary of Health. Dixon was formerly a research fellow with the Privacy Foundation at Denver University's Sturm School of Law. There, she researched and wrote about technology-related privacy issues. Dixon has written extensively about technology both as a book author and as a former New Media columnist for the San Diego Union Tribune. Ms. Dixon has written seven books for major publishers, including two critically acclaimed books about technology and consumers. She wrote the first book to ever be published about the subject of online job searching, a book for Random House / Times Books which went on to be a finalist for the Computer Press Awards. Her book on distance education is a classic and is used in college classrooms today. Dixon is frequently quoted in the media regarding privacy and security issues. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, Business Week, The Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, The San Francisco Chronicle, Reader's Digest, USA Today, the Sunday Times (London), Wissen (Germany), and many others have featured and quoted Dixon. Dixon's television appearances include segments on Good Morning America, CBS News' "48 Hours," the BBC, NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox, PBS, MSNBC and NPR.