Peter P. Swire is the C. William O’Neill Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law of the Ohio State University, where he has taught since 1996. Professor Swire is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of privacy, computer security, and the law of cyberspace. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Beginning in July, 2009, Professor Swire was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, serving in the National Economic Council under Lawrence Summers. In that role, he was White House coordinator for the administration’s inter-agency housing and housing finance policy, including serving as Chair of the White House Working Group on foreclosures and asset disposition. Along with many other housing topics, he was centrally involved in the reform process for the government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. From October 2009 until April 2010, he was also the lead person at the NEC on technology issues, including broadband, spectrum, privacy and cybersecurity, and net neutrality. Previously, during the Obama-Biden Transition, Swire was a member of the Agency Review Team for the Federal Trade Commission. He served as counsel to the New Media team, as it created the complete overhaul of whitehouse.gov. After the Inauguration, Swire worked extensively in support of the then-designate to chair the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski.
In August, 2010 Professor Swire returned to his position as the C. William O’Neill Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law of the Ohio State University. He is Director of the Moritz Washington, D.C., Summer Program, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He has taught numerous subjects, with recent courses on topics including antitrust, cyberspace, cybersecurity, privacy, torts, and ethics.
Professor Swire previously took a hiatus from Ohio State from 1999 to early 2001, when he served as the Clinton Administration's Chief Counselor for Privacy in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. In that position, he coordinated Administration policy on the use of personal information in the public and private sectors, and served as point of contact with privacy and data protection officials in other countries. He was White House coordinator for the proposed and final HIPAA medical privacy rules, and played a leading role on topics including financial privacy, Internet privacy, encryption, public records and privacy, ecommerce policy, and computer security and privacy.
Professor Swire has published extensively, testifies regularly before the Congress, and is quoted frequently in national and international press. He is faculty editor of “The Privacy Year in Review,” published by I:S, A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Age, which is distributed to all members of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. He is lead author of Information Privacy: Official Reference for the Certified Information Privacy Professional. Many of his writings appear at www.peterswire.net.
Degree(s):
A.B., Princeton University
J.D., Yale Law School
