Risks and Risk Assessments: Reporting Out on California’s Proposed AI & Privacy Regulations

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is hosting “Risks and Risk Assessments: Reporting Out on California’s Proposed AI & Privacy Regulations” on Monday, June 16 at 9 am PT / 12pm ET. Watch the recording here.

EPIC Senior Counsel Sara Geoghegan will moderate the virtual discussion panel and will be joined by: 

• Ben Winters, Director of AI and Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America 
• Swati Chintala, Research Manager for the Labor Program at TechEquity  
• Dr. Gemma Galdon-Clavell, founder and CEO of Eticas.ai 
• Mayu Tobin-Miyaji, Law Fellow focusing on AI and Human Rights at EPIC

From groceries to loans to employment to medical care, AI systems increasingly govern access to goods and essential services affecting our daily lives. As a result, risk assessments have become an indispensable tool for upholding privacy, autonomy, and human rights across the public and private sectors. How do risk assessments protect against data overcollection and algorithmic biases? What distinguishes risk assessments from other regulatory requirements? How can risk assessments ensure corporate transparency and accountability? What tools can complement risk assessments to better protect consumer privacy? 

Our panelists will delve into these topics and examine the effectiveness of existing risk assessment laws and frameworks, with special attention to the California Privacy Protection Agency’s (CPPA) risk assessment regulatory process. As regulatory bodies like the CPPA work to educate, protect, and empower consumers, our panelists will share best practices and discuss EPIC’s forthcoming report on risk assessments, offering targeted recommendations to strengthen the CPPA’s approach as it moves toward finalizing its rules.

About the event panelists: 

Ben Winters is the Director of AI and Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America. Ben leads CFA’s advocacy efforts related to data privacy and automated systems and works with subject matter experts throughout CFA to integrate concerns about privacy and AI in order to better advocate for consumers. Ben is also an adjunct professor at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. Prior to CFA, Ben worked at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, where he was an Attorney Advisor in the policy section focusing on algorithmic harm in the civil rights context and was Senior Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) where he led the AI/Human Rights project and advocated for accountability through legislative and direct legal action. 

Dr. Gemma Galdon-Clavell is a pioneer and global force in AI safety and auditing, ensuring that machine learning tools truly serve society. She is the founder and CEO of Eticas.ai, a venture-backed organization that identifies, measures and corrects algorithmic vulnerabilities, bias and inefficiencies in predictive and LLM tools. Eticas’ software, the ITACA platform, is the first solution to automate impact analysis and monitoring, ensuring that AI systems are high performing and safe, explainable, fair and trustworthy. Dr. Galdon-Clavell is an active advisor to international and regional institutions such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), European Institue of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and the European Commission, among others. Her comments on AI developments have been captured in Wired, Business Insider, Forbes and Computer Weekly. 

Swati Chintala is the Research Manager for the Labor Program at TechEquity. She is passionate about understanding how new forms of technology shape work and impact workers. She comes to TechEquity with over ten years of experience researching informal and precarious work and advocating for workers in the Global South. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University. 

Mayu Tobin-Miyaji is an EPIC Law Fellow focusing on AI and Human Rights. She is a graduate of Fordham University School of Law, where she was a Stein Scholar in Public Interest Law and Ethics. She served as co-president of Fordham Information Law Society, and a member of the Fordham OUTLaws board, the Fordham Moot Court board, and Fordham Law Review. While at school, she interned at the Federal Trade Commission and Knight First Amendment Institute, and externed with New York Civil Liberties Union on the Voting Rights Project. She holds a B.A. from Rice University in Computer Science and Cognitive Sciences and worked as a software engineer before law school.