About the IAPP

Alessandro Acquisti is a Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, the PwC William W. Cooper Professor of Risk and Regulatory Innovation, and a Carnegie Fellow (inaugural class). He is the director of the Peex (Privacy Economics Experiments) lab at CMU, and the co-director of Carnegie Mellon’s CBDR (Center for Behavioral and Decision Research). Acquisti investigates the economics of privacy. His studies spearheaded the investigation of privacy and disclosure behaviour in online social networks, and the application of behavioural economics to the study of privacy and information security decision making. His studies have won numerous awards and have been published in journals, books and proceedings across different fields, including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Management Science, Journal of Economic Literature, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Psychology. Acquisti has testified before the U.S. Senate and House committees on issues related to privacy policy and consumer behaviour. His findings have been featured in national and international media outlets, including the Economist, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Wired.com, NPR, CNN, and 60 Minutes. His TED talks on privacy and human behaviour have over 1.2 million views online. Acquisti holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and master’s degrees from UC Berkeley, the London School of Economics and Trinity College Dublin.