Karen Neuman

Ms. Neuman was appointed Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Officer by Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Beers in October 2013. Created by Congress in 2002, the Department’s Privacy Office is the first statutorily mandated privacy office in any federal agency, whose mission is to protect all individuals by embedding and enforcing privacy protections and transparency in all DHS activities.

In her role as Chief Privacy Officer, Ms. Neuman is responsible for evaluating department-wide programs, systems, technologies and rule-makings for potential privacy impacts, and for providing mitigation strategies to reduce any privacy impact. She and her staff have extensive expertise in privacy laws, both domestic and international, that help inform privacy policy development both within the Department, and in collaboration with the rest of the federal government. Her office also advises senior leadership to ensure that privacy protections are implemented throughout the Department.

Ms. Neuman also serves as the Department’s Chief FOIA Officer; her office centralizes both FOIA and Privacy Act operations to provide policy and programmatic oversight and support implementation across the Department.

Prior to joining the Department, Ms. Neuman was a founding partner with the law firm of St. Ledger-Roty, Neuman and Olson, LLP, where she specialized in privacy and data protection law, advising a wide range of businesses about U.S and European privacy legal frameworks and industry self-regulating programs. In addition to conducting privacy assessments and system audits, Ms. Neuman helped clients create and implement policies and procedures for employee data handling, incident response, and cross-border transfers. She is an expert in children’s online privacy protection and geo-location privacy, as well as federal education privacy.

She is a frequent author and speaker on privacy issues. She is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and the Privacy & Data Security Committee of the Federal Communications Bar Association. As Chief Privacy Officer, she co-chairs the Information Sharing Environment Privacy Guidelines Committee.

Ms. Neuman obtained her law degree from the Antioch School of Law, and her Bachelor of Arts from The University of California, Santa Cruz.