Back

Dr. Alan F. Westin is Professor of Public Law and Government Emeritus at Columbia University; Publisher of Privacy & American Business; and President of the Center for Social & Legal Research.

Professor Westin’s major books on privacy -- Privacy and Freedom (1967) and Databanks in a Free Society (1972) -- were pioneering works that prompted U.S. privacy legislation and helped launch global privacy movements in many democratic nations in the 1960’s and 70’s. 

Over the past forty years, Dr. Westin has been a member of U.S. federal and state government privacy commissions and an expert witness before legislative committees and regulatory agencies. He has been a privacy consultant to many U.S. federal, state, and local government agencies and government research foundations and has helped write privacy codes for over one hundred companies, including IBM, American Express, Citicorp, Intel, Prudential, A.T.&T., News Corporation, VISA, and Merck. 

He has keynoted privacy conferences around the world, from Canada to England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Japan and Hong Kong.

Since 1978, he has been the academic advisor to Harris Interactive for more than 60 national surveys of public and leadership attitudes toward consumer, employee, and citizen privacy issues, in the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain and Japan. 

In 1993, Dr. Westin founded Privacy & American Business, a non-profit think tank that provides expert analysis on business-privacy issues. P&AB publishes a bi-monthly newsletter; conducts an annual national conference and leads a Corporate Privacy Leadership Program.