About the IAPP

Lauren Bernick is the Principal Deputy Civil Liberties Protection Officer for the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and Principal Deputy Chief of ODNI’s Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency (CLPT). CLPT is led by the independent ODNI Civil Liberties Protection Officer (CLPO), who has authority to ensure privacy and civil liberties are protected within the United States Intelligence Community and to investigate individual complaints against the USIC.

As Principal Deputy CLPO, Ms. Bernick ensures that civil liberties, privacy, and data protection safeguards are appropriately incorporated into Intelligence Community’s policies and into its access and handling of data pursuant to national security authorities. Her work has focused on advancing privacy protections in cross-border data transfers and government accesses. Previously, she participated in reviews of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework relating to national security access to data; more recently, she participated in negotiations for the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF). She has worked closely with the independent ODNI CLPO in standing up the ODNI CLPO redress mechanism specified under the DPF Framework to facilitate the review of individual’s qualified complaints.

Her expertise in privacy protections and national security government access allowed her to play an integral role in the negotiation of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data Held by Private Sector Entities, commonly referred to as the OECD’s Trusted Government Access to Data Principles. Understanding the importance of public transparency, Ms. Bernick also works to enhance transparency of the Intelligence Community’s activities through authorized releases, by engaging with non-governmental representatives, and at public conferences about data privacy topics.

Ms. Bernick earned her law degree from the Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.) and previously served as an attorney in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice; she is admitted to practice law in New York. Prior to graduating law school, Ms. Bernick earned a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College (Massachusetts) and a master’s degree the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (Pennsylvania), both in international affairs.