The state of California has selected the inaugural board members of the new California Privacy Protection Agency approved by California voters during the November 2020 election. The new board members come from a variety of backgrounds, including private legal practice, academia, and nonprofits.

The new chair of the board, Jennifer M. Urban, is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. There she serves as the Director of its Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. Her research work has focused on consumer privacy in advertising and mobile devices. She works with students in the clinic to bring actions to enforce consumer privacy laws.

Other board members are:

• John Christopher Thompson: Mr. Thompson currently serves as Senior Vice President of Government Relations for LA 2028, the City of LA’s Olympics and Paralympics planning committee. He has previously served in government relations rolls for Southern California Edison and as a US Senate staff member.
• Vinhcent Le: Mr. Le is an attorney at the Greenlining Institute where he focuses on consumer privacy. His interests include preventing algorithmic bias in economic opportunity and closing the digital access divide.
• Lydia de la Torre: Ms. de la Torre teaches comparative data protection law and she is the co-director of SCU’s Data Privacy Certificate program. Her research centers on the current state of the CA Data Protection regulatory framework.

This new agency will play a crucial role shaping the future of California privacy law. It will have rulemaking authority and will be responsible for enforcing and implementing the CPRA and imposing administrative fines.