McGlinchey Stafford, PLLC
MONTH-IN-BRIEF (Sep 2021)
[lwptoc]
Consumer Finance
President Biden Nominates Privacy Advocate Alvaro Bedoya as FTC Commissioner
By Eric Mogilnicki & Lucy Bartholomew, Covington & Burling LLP
On September 13, 2021, President Biden announced the nomination of Alvaro Bedoya to serve as Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner. Bedoya is currently a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he leads the Center on Privacy & Technology. He has argued for a right to privacy, written extensively about government surveillance, and challenged large technology companies on their privacy practices. Bedoya spent significant time on the Hill, serving as chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law and as an aide to Senator Al Franken (D-MN). On the same day President Biden announced the nomination, FTC Chair Lina Khan released a statement highlighting Bedoya’s ”expertise on surveillance and data security and his longstanding commitment to public service,” which she indicated “would be enormously valuable to the Commission as we work to meet this moment of tremendous need and opportunity.”