Path to Online Privacy

An Interview with Dr. Jen King

Abstract

Dr. Jennifer King is the Privacy and Data Policy Fellow at the Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. An information scientist by training, Dr. King is a recognized expert and scholar in information privacy. Sitting at the intersection of human-computer interaction, law, and the social sciences, her research examines the public’s understanding and expectations of online privacy as well as the policy implications of emerging technologies. Most recently, her research explored alternatives to notice and consent (with the World Economic Forum), the impact of California’s new privacy laws, and dark patterns. Her past work includes projects focusing on social media, genetic privacy, mobile application platforms, the Internet of Things (IoT), and digital surveillance. Her scholarship has been recognized for its impact on policymaking by the Future of Privacy Forum, and she has been an invited speaker before the Federal Trade Commission at several Commission workshops. She has been featured in numerous publications and outlets, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Wired, Recode, National Public Radio, CNBC, Bloomberg, CNET, Vox, Consumer Reports, NBC News, MIT Technology Review, among others. Dr. King completed her doctorate in Information Management and Systems at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information. 

Prior to joining HAI, Dr. King was the Director of Consumer Privacy at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law school from 2018 to 2020. Before coming to Stanford, she was a co-director of the Center for Technology, Society, and Policy, a graduate student-led research center at UC Berkeley, and was a privacy researcher at the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at Berkeley Law. She was a member of the California State Advisory Board on Mobile Privacy Policies and the California State RFID Advisory Board. She received her Master’s in Information Management and Systems also from the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information, and her undergraduate degree in Political Science and Sociology from the University of California, Irvine. Prior to entering academia she worked in security and in product management for several Internet companies, most notably Yahoo!.