The inaugural issue of Privacy and Data Protection in Academia, A Global Guide to Curricula has just been released. This guide has information regarding privacy and data protection programs and courses offered at graduate schools, including law, computer science and business schools around the world. This information was based on a survey.
Some law schools with notable privacy faculty and course offerings are missing, but overall, this is a useful guide. After seeing all the schools that offer some form of curriculum in privacy law, it might be tempting to conclude that this is a success story. It isn’t. Although the field of privacy law has grown dramatically in past two decades, education in law schools about privacy law has significantly lagged behind. Most U.S. law schools lack a course on privacy law. Of those that have courses, many are small seminars, often taught by adjuncts. Of the law schools that do have a privacy course, most often just have one course. Most schools lack a full-time faculty member who focuses substantially on privacy law. Read my article called An Open Letter to Law School Deans about Privacy Law Education in Law Schools to learn more about my thoughts in this area.
It is a shame that the majority of law schools still lack even a course on privacy law. Some have occasional seminars taught by adjuncts.
Below is my law school’s listing in the Guide. Although GW offers a lot comparative to many other schools, I still think we have a long way to go.
Location: Washington, D.C., U.S.
Founded: 1821 George Washington University, 1865 GW Law
School/department offering curricula: Law
Type of program: Full-Time Professor(s);
Part-Time or Adjunct Professor(s); Seminar(s)
Level of program: Law Degree
Region: North America
Description of offering(s): George Washington Law School has consistently provided a three-unit course in Information Privacy Law for the past two decades. More focused topical seminars are also offered. A longstanding course in Cybersecurity Law and Policy has been taught at the law school for many years by an adjunct professor. Recently, a project in the clinics has focused on Latin American privacy laws. Many students do internships at privacy associations or government agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, Future of Privacy Forum, Network Advertising Initiative, Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Privacy Information Center and others, and many students do fellowships after graduating, such as IAPP’s Westin Fellowship, FPF, CDT, ZwillGen and others.
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This post was authored by Professor Daniel J. Solove, who through TeachPrivacy develops computer-based privacy and data security training. He also posts at his blog at LinkedIn, which has more than 1 million followers.
Professor Solove is the organizer, along with Paul Schwartz, of the Privacy + Security Forum an annual event designed for seasoned professionals.
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