Privacy Week 2023 Presentations

 

 

Webinar on Health Data Privacy

WaTech's state Chief Privacy Officer Katy Ruckle and Jennifer Lee from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will present a live webinar with important tips on how to safeguard your personal health information from invasive data invasive practices, and steps you can take to keep your data safe. They will also talk about proposed legislation seeking to protect health data.

  • Date: Thursday, Jan. 26
  • Time: Noon - 1 p.m.

Katy Ruckle was appointed as Washington state's Chief Privacy Officer on Jan. 1, 2020 by the State Chief Information Officer. Since her appointment, Katy has published foundational privacy principles for Washington state agencies to incorporate into their data governance practices and increased training on privacy and data protection through monthly webinars. Katy previously served as the Privacy Officer at the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) where she created and implemented the agency's privacy program -- overseeing public records, records management, discovery, and HIPAA compliance. Before becoming the Privacy Officer for DSHS, she served as its Contracts Counsel, working extensively on complex contract and procurement issues regarding health care and technology.

 

Jennifer Lee is the Technology & Liberty Manager at the ACLU of Washington, where she advocates for state and local legislation to regulate powerful surveillance and AI-based technologies. She leads ACLU-WA's work drafting, advancing, and implementing community-focused policies related to technology, privacy, and civil liberties. A key focus of her work is organizing a tech coalition that centers race equity and the voices of historically marginalized communities. She is also working with researchers, activists, and technologists to develop community capacity-building countersurveillance and AI policy toolkits.

 

Webinar on AGO Data Breach Report

To celebrate and recognize Privacy Week, Andrea Alegrett and Cooper Smith with the Washington State Office of the Attorney General (AGO) will present a pre-recorded webinar on Tuesday, Jan. 24 about the AGO's recent Data Breach Report. The webinar will review the latest data breach statistics - the AGO received 150 data breach notifications in 2022, the second-highest recorded amount since 2016 - as well as their recommendations for protecting personal information.

 

Andrea Alegrett is an Assistant Attorney General for the Consumer Protection Division of the Washington State Attorney General's Office. She is the Office's lead privacy attorney. In this role, she investigates and litigates cases involving consumer privacy, data security violations, and data breach incidents. Her practice also focuses on violations of federal privacy-related laws, such as HIPAA and COPPA. In addition, Andrea serves as the Office's privacy subject matter expert on legislative issues. She has drafted several privacy-related bills introduced in the state legislature and provided testimony in legislative hearings.

 

 

Cooper Smith is a Policy Analyst with the Washington State Attorney General's Office, and has been their lead analyst on data breaches and data privacy since 2018. He has worked on numerous projects in this field including the AG's annual Data Breach Report, AG-request legislation strengthening the state's data breach notification laws, and most recently led the development of a new public-facing database for data breaches affecting Washingtonians on data.wa.gov."