3-9-99

LAW PROFESSOR NAMED TO WHITE HOUSE POSITION

   COLUMBUS -- Peter Swire, professor of law at The Ohio State University, has been appointed to the newly created position of Chief Counselor for Privacy in the White House Office of Management and Budget.

   Swire will coordinate privacy policy with respect to both public- and private-sector use of personal information. He also will be a point of contact for privacy agencies in other countries.

   Vice President Gore, who last year called for increased focus on privacy and proposed an Electronic Bill of Rights, said, “Professor Swire will lead our efforts to make our new economy and our newest technology consistent with one of our oldest values -- privacy. Specifically, he will move forward on our agenda to protect every American’s right to privacy amid explosive growth in the collection and use of personal records of all kinds.”

   Swire will be on half-time leave from his Ohio State position until May 1, when he will begin a full-time leave.

   Swire, who joined the Ohio State faculty in 1996, is an internationally recognized expert on computer privacy issues, such as the uses and limits of cryptography, financial privacy, and the protection of personal information in electronic data transfer.

   He is the co-author of None of Your Business: World Data Flows, Electronic Commerce & the Internet Privacy Directive, published in 1998 by the Brookings Institution Press. He was a recent consultant to the U.S. Department of Commerce, assisting in negotiations with the European Union on how new, strict European privacy laws should apply to transfers of personal information to the United States. A frequent speaker on legal issues related to privacy and the Internet, Swire chaired a panel at the January annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools called “The Walls have Eyes and Ears and Telescopic Lenses: Privacy and Computer-Mediated Surveillance.”

   “We certainly will miss Peter as part of our regular faculty,” said Gregory H. Williams, dean of the College of Law. “Peter has emerged as a national leader on cyberspace and privacy issues and we are proud that he can enter public service for our country.”

   President William E. Kirwan concurred: “It is an honor for the university and a reflection of the high caliber of our College of Law to have one of our faculty chosen for such an important and influential national position. We will miss having Professor Swire here, but we are pleased to give him leave to fulfill this important role. This reflects Ohio State’s commitment to service to the larger community and to being a leader in meeting the challenges of new technologies.”

   Swire previously taught at the University of Virginia School of Law, and was an associate in the Washington, D.C., firm of Powell, Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy. In the year following his 1985 graduation from the Yale Law School, he clerked for Judge Ralph K. Winter in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. His undergraduate degree is from Princeton University.

Contact: Liz Cutler Gates, College of Law, (614) 292-0283