Katherine M. Harman-Stokes

Ms. Harman-Stokes is the Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties (OPCL). The Office supports the Department’s Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer (CPCLO) and is responsible for helping ensure that the Department’s 42 components comply with the Privacy Act of 1974, E-Government Act, and other privacy-related laws, regulations, and policies. In her role, she also has a central policy-making role in the Department’s development and evaluation of legislative, regulatory, and other policy proposals affecting privacy, both domestically and internationally.  She has directly participated in international negotiations designed to harmonize high standards for protection of privacy and civil liberties in the law enforcement and national security contexts. Before joining DOJ, she was the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) at one of the U.S. financial regulators, where she was the first CPO and the senior advisor for ensuring data protection and privacy in all agency programs and operations.  She has been a consultant to multinational companies on international data protection and privacy law, with a special expertise in biometrics, and was a corporate officer and Associate General Counsel at the company that owns the GMAT exam, where she oversaw the data protection and privacy program for the company’s operations in 110 countries. She has chaired various committees and working groups in the Federal Privacy Council and has hosted data privacy symposia.  She also was an attorney at Hogan & Hartson LLP (now Hogan Lovells US), received her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and her undergraduate degree from the American University School of International Service in Washington DC. She is a Certified Information Privacy Professional-US and Government (CIPP/US, CIPP/G).