Katherine Harman-Stokes
Ms. Harman-Stokes is the Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties (OPCL). The Office supports the Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer (CPCLO) and is responsible for helping ensure the Department’s compliance with the Privacy Act of 1974, E-Government Act, and other privacy-related laws, regulations, and policies. In addition, the Office has a central policy-making role in the Department’s development and evaluation of legislative, regulatory, and other policy proposals affecting privacy, both domestically and internationally. Ms. Harman-Stokes has directly participated in international negotiations designed to harmonize high standards for protection of privacy and civil liberties in the law enforcement and national security contexts. Before joining DOJ, she was the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. financial regulator that supervises and enforces US law in derivatives markets. She was the first CPO and the senior advisor for ensuring data protection and privacy in all agency programs and operations. She has been a consultant to multinational companies on international data protection and privacy law, and was a corporate officer and Associate General Counsel and was responsible for the data protection and privacy program at a company collecting sensitive biometric and other data in 110 countries. She has chaired various committees and working groups in the Federal Privacy Council and has hosted data privacy symposia. She also was an attorney at Hogan & Hartson LLP (now Hogan Lovells US), received her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and her undergraduate degree from the American University School of International Service. She is an IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional-US and Government (CIPP/US, CIPP/G).