Just about a week left to send in your proposals for the Life After Data conference!

Fun to see the Library of Babel Group zine featured on @dairinstitute.bsky.social’s guest zone page. zines.dair-institute.org/guest-zines

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We’re excited to have a new incredible Distinguished Fellow join our team! Please join us in welcoming @hypervisible.blacksky.app! Read more about his work here: www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...

Please join us in welcoming our new Distinguished Fellow, Sushma Raman! She's an experienced social change innovator, leader, and strategic advisor. We're excited for her to join us. Read more about her on our website: www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...:

Last week, SoCal’s Monterey Park passed the nation’s first voter-approved permanent citywide data center ban. Communities rejecting data centers, “also targets of ICE raids, are drawing connections between the two,” writes @ehtse.bsky.social in a new op-ed for @coloradoboulevard.bsky.social

Don’t forget to submit your abstract for our Life After Data conference, happening at Georgetown Law in October. Deadline is about a month away! www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...

New: Regretful cities are literally covering their Flock cameras with black trash bags because they cannot figure out how to immediately exit their surveillance contracts or get the cameras taken down: www.404media.co/cities-are-c...

Our ED Emily Tucker recently wrote a chapter for the Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Governance and the Law. She argues that algorithmic tech necessarily makes systems of policing & punishment less just, even if the tech is good & even if the society using it is too. Read her whole chapter here:

Our Associate Marianna Poyares recently spoke with @thewarhorsenews.bsky.social about the multiple technologies deployed around the US-Mexico border. Read all about the current state of border tech here: thewarhorse.org/southern-bor...

Our ED Emily Tucker spoke with Natalie Alexander of the AIxMultilateralism podcast about why “AI governance” is a fool’s game without radical limitations on corporate data practices. Listen to the whole episode here:

In response to Georgetown University’s recent decision to give students, faculty, and staff licenses for the Google chatbot, our Executive Director Emily Tucker wrote an open letter urging students to resist the co-optation of their education by the tech industry.

Georgetown’s English Dept’s annual Lacay Lecture is on “AI Resistance and Refusal in Higher Education” on April 13th at 5 pm.

The Intercept published an article about immigration authorities in Minnesota intimidating peaceful, legal observers at their own homes. The article mentioned our American Dragnet report, referencing how ICE can use driver’s license data to surveil U.S. adults. Read the article here:

We’ve seen the 📷s: ICE agents (paid) looming over (unpaid) TSA agents as lines snake into airport parking lots. What you probably haven’t realized is while ICE wastes taxpayer $$ snacking in airport food courts, staff responsible for letting the public know what the agency is up to are MIA.

📢 📢 📢 TODAY: Join us for a screening of “Digital Detention” followed by a Q&A with director Carolina Sanchez Boe and Professor Denise Gilman. Register here: tinyurl.com/digitaldeten...

Our Faculty Advisor Laura Moy recently spoke as a guest on the Science Friday podcast to explain how ICE uses technology to track individuals via their phones. Georgetown Law Professor Moy provides key insights to how personal data can be made vulnerable to data brokers. Listen here:

📢📢📢 Reminder! Next Thursday, March 26, at 3 PM we will be hosting a screening of “Digital Detention” followed by a Q&A with the director Carolina Sanchez Boe and Professor Denise Gilman, moderated by Marianna Poyares.

Our ED Emily Tucker, was quoted in the Guardian regarding the potential capacity for DHS body camera footage to be weaponized against immigrants and their communities. To learn more about the role of Axon in supplying surveillance technologies to governments agencies like ICE, read the article here:

One of our Distinguished Fellows, Anil Kalhan reviewed David M. Rabban’s book, “Academic Freedom: From Professional Norm to First Amendment Right” in an article for Academe Magazine. Read the article here:

The Privacy Center will be hosting a screening of "Digital Detention" and subsequent Q&A with director and producer Caroliana Sanchez-Boe and Denise Gilman (Georgetown Law/UT Texas).

On March 6, Lawfare, @georgetownprivacy.bsky.social, and @gtowntechlaw.bsky.social marked the 40th anniversary of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act with a live event. You can now watch a recording of this event–and read the papers prepared for the event–here:

In the Georgetown Law Technology Review, our advisory board member Ignacio Cofone published an article detailing how the privacy paradox—that people say they’re concerned for their safety but then disclose information—is actually not what it seems.

Join us for a joint event with @lawfaremedia.org and @gtowntechlaw.bsky.social, “Installing Updates to ECPA.” The event marks the 40th anniversary of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and features keynote remarks and panels from leading experts on the future of surveillance law.

Two months before Calvin Alexander’s parole hearing date, he was told he was no longer eligible. Why? An algorithm had deemed the nearly blind 70-year-old, who uses a wheelchair, a “moderate risk,” barring him from speaking to the parole board. (Published April 2025 w/ @veritenews.org)

One of our advisory board members, Ulises Mejias (@ulises-mejias.bsky.social), recently published an article in Academe Magazine titled “Artificial Intelligence as a Threat to Academic Labor” where he analyzes how AI has been and will continue to disrupt education and writing assignments.

Toobin's call for a radical re-thinking of constitutional interpretation is answered in "A Theory of Law for the Next Founding Generation" by McNeill and Tucker. scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cpt_papers/1/ @georgetownprivacy.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/o...

Our 2022 report, “American Dragnet,” was featured in a New York Times article titled “ICE’s New Surveillance State Isn’t Tracking Only Immigrants,” which discusses ICE’s extensive surveillance practices that are costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Read the full article here:

Our Executive Director Emily Tucker was featured in a Frankfurter Allgemeine article discussing the Trump administration’s reliance on tech to facilitate ICE’s mass deportation efforts. She tells Frankfurter Allgemeine this use of technology is “far beyond what is justifiable.” Read the article:

Join GW’s Health Law and Policy Program and GW’s Center for Law on Friday, February 13th for “Private Matters: Health, Technology, and Battles Over Personal Data.” Featuring our Director of Research & Advocacy Stevie Glaberson, the event will explore pressing issues on privacy in healthcare.

Last fall, local high school student Elina Jadhav reached out to our Executive Director Emily Tucker about a research project she was working on pertaining to the use of surveillance technology by police.

Our Faculty Advisor Paul Ohm’s (@paulohm.bsky.social) essay, “Toward Compliance Zero: AI & the Vanishing Costs of Regulatory Compliance” was featured in a @lawfaremedia.org article discussing the potential of AI-automated regulatory compliance & the implications for future AI policy.

Our Executive Director Emily Tucker was quoted in a column by Tressie McMillan Cottom from the New York Times about signs that ICE is looking to collect data from nearly every facet of Americans’ lives. Read the article here:

Join Lawfare, @georgetownprivacy.bsky.social, and the @gtowntechlaw.bsky.social on Friday, March 6 for a event featuring leading scholars, practitioners, and former government officials marking the 40th anniversary of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. RSVP here: lawfaremedia.org/ecpaevent

Dominoes are falling, per @ruddock.bsky.social.

On January 30th, we cohosted Georgetown Law Technology Review’s symposium: Data, Power, and Authoritarianism. The Symposium featured a fireside chat with our founder, Alvaro Bedoya, & our Faculty Advisors Julie Cohen, Paul Ohm, Laura Moy, & one of our Advisory Board members, Ulises A. Mejias.

Our Director of Research & Advocacy Stevie Glaberson spoke with Rolling Stone's Alex Ashley about how the Trump administration has been using a widely-ignored federal law from the Bush administration as the basis for legal DNA collection at immigration screenings. Read the article here:

Our ED Emily Tucker spoke with Semafor about how tech can be used to monitor the govt. & hold it accountable. “The technologies used by the government & by individuals are not comparable — ‘it’s like saying they have an atom bomb, & you have a pen knife,’ Tucker says.” Read the article here:

Our Director of Research and Advocacy Stevie Glaberson recently spoke with MPR News’ Nina Mioni about how ICE’s surveillance tools enable the tracking of people in Minnesota. Read the article here:

We are partnering with the Georgetown Law Technology Review to host the 2026 Symposium next week. The Symposium features our founder Alvaro Bedoya, our Faculty Advisors Julie Cohen, Paul Ohm, Laura Moy, and one of our Advisory Board members Ulises A. Mejias.

Our Postdoctoral Fellow Marianna Poyares and Executive Director Emily Tucker were quoted in an Inkstick Media article that explores how surveillance technologies and the misregulation of AI-supported platforms target and harm many immigrant communities in the United States. Read the article here:

Our ED Emily Tucker was quoted in a Financial Times (@financialtimes.com) article on the Trump administration’s expanding use of commercial and government data to track and deport immigrants. Read the full article here:

“The lawsuit claims that the use of Flock cameras constitutes an illegal search and violates his 4th Amendment right to privacy and association. The city has also broken California law barring out-of-state law enforcement from using such data, Moore’s lawsuit alleges.”

Last month, DHS issued a notice of its intent to change the agency rule on DNA collection to give itself essentially unlimited authority to take DNA from anyone. 48 members of Congress signed a letter opposing the rule. You have until Jan 2 to submit your comment. drive.google.com/file/d/1tqSA...

This story from @rollingstone.com draws extensively on two of our reports, Raiding the Genome and American Dragnet. The US government is building a vast genetic surveillance apparatus in the name of immigration enforcement. Great quotes in here from @sglabe.bsky.social.

Our ED, Emily Tucker, talked to @madisyn-writes.bsky.social about why many of the folks who helped advocate for the Maryland Driver Privacy Act are now worried that the state hasn’t actually been following the law since it went into effect.

Our Associate Emerald Tse was featured in a Documented article about Palantir’s development of surveillance tech that targets immigrant communities & advocates. "These surveillance technology tools aren’t new, they’re just more powerful than they were before," said Tse. Read the whole article here:

"States should ignore this ridiculous EO" as well as any similar attempts to preempt legislatively. The president's billionaire cronies have made him understand that controlling data means controlling resources means controlling people. This EO is a declaration that we must all submit.

Our Director of Research & Advocacy Stevie Glaberson spoke with Stephen Rhode and one of our Advisory Board members Heidi Boghosian for their podcast Law & Disorder. They discussed our Raiding the Genome report and 2025 update. Listen to the whole episode here:

Earlier this year, our ED Emily Tucker wrote a perspective piece for Tech Policy Press urging for hard limits on the scale of corporate data collection, titled “To Have Democracy, We Must Contest Data.” Read her article here: