About the IAPP

Katharina Kopp, Deputy Director of the Center for Digital Democracy and Director for Policy, has extensive experience as an advocate, scholar, policy analyst, privacy expert, coalition builder, communicator, convener, strategist and corporate leader. At CDD she leads on various initiatives to explore how Big Data practices and technologies, particularly with regard to privacy, adversely affect individuals, groups and society. The impact of these practices on equity, autonomy and agency, and the erosion of fairness and justice are of main concern to her. She is focused on how public policy solutions, grass roots efforts, and constituency building can be deployed to mitigate those risks. Central to her work is the goal to shape the public’s understanding of these impacts and to frame the remedies in terms of shared responsibilities and systemic dynamics, as opposed to relying on individual-level solutions alone. Dr. Kopp (CIPP/US, CIPP/G) worked with the Center for Media Education during the 1990s and served as a key policy advocate during the passage and implementation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In addition to her work with the Aspen Institute, the Benton Foundation, and the Health Privacy Project, Dr. Kopp served as vice president at American Express, leading its global privacy risk management program. Most recently she was the director of the Privacy and Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology. 



Dr. Kopp completed her Ph.D. and M.A. in communications and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication, and graduated from the University of London, Queen Mary College.



She lives in Washington, DC and is a first generation American with native fluency in German, who has lived in Germany, France and the UK.