Privacy Over Party: Peter Swire

Privacy Over Party: Peter Swire

There’s a U.S. election coming up in a few weeks. You may have heard something about it. What you haven’t heard as much about in this election cycle is the candidates’ stance on privacy. Why? And will privacy views and policies change depending on who takes office? This week, Georgia Tech Professor Peter Swire, a privacy and data policy advisor in both the Clinton and Obama Administrations, joins host Arlo Gilbert this week to talk about how privacy figures into gun control, abortion, and other hot-button issues, and to share his regulatory insight on everything from AI to Crypto. 

About Our Guest

With a career spanning over three decades, Peter Swire has served at the highest levels of government, including as Chief Counselor for Privacy under President Clinton and a key member of President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology. You might say he’s something of an authority on privacy. He is currently the J.Z. Liang Professor of Privacy and Cybersecurity at Georgia Tech, and Research Director of the Cross-Border Data Forum. 

Episode Highlights:

• [03:16] - Bipartisan Support for Privacy Legislation
• [04:58] - The Complexity of Privacy Legislation
• [10:37] - Abortion Rights and Medical Privacy Clash
• [14:09] - AI’s Rapid Evolution and Regulatory Challenges
• [21:43] - The Paradox of Crypto: Freedom vs. Safety
• [28:15] - The Intersection of Government and Industry Surveillance

Quotes:

• "Both candidates have expressed support for general federal privacy law... There should be access to people’s data, people should be able to correct their data, and there should be some choice before it gets sold to third parties."
• "This is where abortion politics and privacy get mixed up together because we have some states like Texas who are taking vigorous efforts to try to block abortions, and other states... that are taking vigorous efforts to protect the right for a woman to have an abortion."
• "This AI explosion reminds me of the internet explosion in the 90s... It seems like we’re in a somewhat comparable rate of change right now when it comes to AI."
• “When you think about this libertarian ideal that tends to be the undercurrent in cryptocurrency, it’s a very seductive argument... But I come back to this question of, well, don’t we want government oversight of our money?"
• "We can’t do modern cybersecurity without pervasive encryption in a hundred thousand different ways. So I’m a huge lover of encryption... But I’m not on the side of cryptocurrencies because my experience in banking regulation is, they lack essential safeguards and they’re a recipe for scams."

Episode Resources:

• Peter Swire on LinkedIn
• Georgia Institute of Technology Website
• Osano Website