Kabbas Azhar

Kabbas Azhar is an Equal Justice Works Fellow at EPIC sponsored by the Boston University School of Law, Michael D. Fricklas and Donna J. Astion Foundation. His work investigates the various surveillance structures that impact public housing residents, including facial recognition, surveillance camera networks, and gang databases. Kabbas further contributes to EPIC’s Surveillance Oversight and AI & Human Rights program by focusing on biometric surveillance, immigration surveillance, electronic border searches, federal government data practices, and state and local surveillance practices. He also contributes to EPIC’s litigation docket.

Kabbas’ recent analyses at EPIC include: DOJ Wants Sensitive Voter Data But Can’t Be Bothered to Protect It, States Should Be a Counterweight to Eroding Federal Transparency, and CBP’s Privacy Impact Assessment on Commercial Telemetry Data Highlights Urgent Need for PIA Reform. He has also been quoted in CyberScoop and the New York Times.

Kabbas first came to EPIC as a 2023 Summer Internet Public Interest Opportunities Program clerk and then returned as an EJW fellow in 2024. Kabbas is a graduate of Boston University School of Law, where he was a Public Interest Scholar, an article editor for the Journal of Science & Technology Law, Co-President of the Energy and Environmental Law Society, and a research assistant to Professor Woodrow Hartzog. While in law school, Kabbas interned at Just Futures Law, EPIC, the Housing and Communities Workgroup at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, and the Consumer Rights Unit at Greater Boston Legal Services. Prior to law school, Kabbas was a preventative child welfare case worker at JCCA. He holds an A.B in Politics from Princeton University and is a member of the District of Columbia and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia bars.

Areas of expertise: Fourth Amendment, federal government data practices, AI, and surveillance.

Contact: [Mailbox], 202.483.1140