Today, reports indicate that President Joe Biden will nominate Alvaro Bedoya as a Commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Bedoya is the Founding Director of the Center on Privacy & Technology and a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law. He previously served as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Bedoya has long been a fierce advocate for consumer privacy and his academic work has focused on surveillance and facial recognition, with an emphasis on the disparate impacts such technologies can have for people of color.
The following can be attributed to Charlotte Slaiman, Competition Policy Director at Public Knowledge:
“Alvaro has already proven himself a public interest champion and a fantastic candidate for the FTC. He’s blazed a trail in holding Big Tech accountable and has spent his career fighting on behalf of the powerless, particularly those in immigrant communities. His scholarship and advocacy revealed how Big Data is used to facilitate oppressive surveillance and racial discrimination against the most vulnerable. We’re thrilled at this nomination and look forward to his work supporting the agency as it moves to achieve ambitious goals for competition. We urge the Senate to confirm his nomination immediately.”
Members of the media may contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to join the Public Knowledge press list at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.