Biden’s new FTC nominee is a digital privacy advocate critical of Big Tech

NelsonG · September 14, 2021

President Biden made his latest nomination to the Federal Trade Commission this week, tapping digital privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya to join the agency as it takes a hard look at the tech industry.

Bedoya is the founding director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown’s law school and previously served as chief counsel for former Senator Al Franken and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Bedoya has worked on legislation addressing some of the most pressing privacy issues in tech, including stalkerware and facial recognition systems.

It is the honor of my life to be nominated to serve on the FTC. When my family landed at JFK in 1987 with 4 suitcases and a grad student stipend, this was not what we expected. Thank you @JoeBiden and @linakhanFTC, thank you Sima, my love, mom, dad, Pablo, our families. Vamos.

— Alvaro Bedoya (@alvarombedoya) September 13, 2021

In 2016, Bedoya co-authored a report titled “The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America,” a year-long investigation that dove deeply into the police use of facial recognition systems in the U.S. The 2016 report examined law enforcement’s reliance on facial recognition systems and biometric databases on a state level. It argued that regulations are desperately needed to curtail potential abuses and algorithmic failures before the technology inevitably becomes even more commonplace.

Bedoya also isn’t shy about calling out Big Tech. In a New York Times op-ed a few years ago, he took aim at Silicon Valley companies giving user privacy lip service in public while quietly funneling millions toward lobbyists to undermine consumer privacy. The new FTC nominee singled out Facebook specifically, pointing to the company’s efforts to undermine the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, a state law that serves as one of the only meaningful checks on invasive privacy practices in the U.S.

Bedoya argued that the tech industry would have an easier time shaping a single, sweeping piece of privacy regulations with its lobbying efforts rather than a flurry of targeted, smaller bills. Antitrust advocates in Congress taking aim at tech today seem to have learned that same lesson as well.

“We cannot underestimate the tech sector’s power in Congress and in state legislatures,” Bedoya wrote. “If the United States tries to pass broad rules for personal data, that effort may well be co-opted by Silicon Valley, and we’ll miss our best shot at meaningful privacy protections.”

If confirmed, Bedoya would join big tech critic Lina Khan, a recent Biden FTC nominee who now chairs the agency. Khan’s focus on antitrust and Amazon in particular would dovetail with Bedoya’s focus on adjacent privacy concerns, making the pair a formidable regulatory presence as the Biden administration seeks to rein in some of the tech industry’s most damaging excesses.