Martin Abrams – VIPSS23

Emeritus Chief Policy Innovation Officer and Founder, Information Accountability Foundation

Martin Abrams, Chief Policy Innovation Officer at The Information Accountability Foundation, has over 40 years of experience as an information and consumer policy innovator. He believes data should serve people. Abrams is currently exploring multi-dimensional proportionality as means to drive trusted innovation, the nature of risk in risk based regulatory structures, and how to incorporate to full range of human interests into data protection, including data protection law fit for the next decade.

Abrams led the Global Accountability Project, which has refined the accountability principle that is part of various data protection laws and guidance documents. The IAF is the incorporation of that dialogue. His work on accountability has impacted privacy laws in most regions.

Multi-stakeholder collaboration has been a key for Abrams in developing practical solutions to dilemmas in information policy. He has been a key player in developing such data protection key concepts as accountability, a two-phase approach to advanced analytics, and ethical assessments. Abrams’ activities are global with projects, dialogs, and seminars in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Pacific regions.

Abrams has also provided leadership in other policy areas. He worked on multilayered privacy notices, which changed the way policymakers and organizations thought about privacy transparency. He has been involved in the development of the APEC Cross Border Privacy Rules and has also been involved with the OECD Working Party on Information Security and Privacy. He is an advisor to numerous benchmark corporate privacy programs.

Before founding the IAF, Abrams was the co-founder and President of the Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton & Andrews LLP, which he led for 13 years. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Information Policy at Experian and Director of Information Policy at TRW Information Systems where he designed one of the early privacy impact assessment tools. Abrams began his consumer policy work at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland where he was Assistant Vice President and Community Affairs Officer.