Education

• Stanford University A.B. 1984
• Stanford University J.D. 1987

Courses

• Communications Law (B646)
• Information Privacy Law (B708)
• Information Security Law (B587)
• Information Technology Essentials for Lawyers (B548)
• Seminar in Communication Law (L716)
• Seminar in Information Law (L716)

Background

• Vice President for Research, Indiana University (2015-23).
• Elected to membership, Council on Foreign Relations (2016).
• Chair of the National Academies Committee on Law Enforcement and Intelligence Access to Plaintext Information in an Era of Widespread Strong Encryption: Options and Tradeoffs (2016 to present).
• Inaugural member of the National Academies Forum on Cyber Resilience (2014 to present).
• Senior Policy Advisor, Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton & Williams LLP (2001 to present).
• Inaugural member of the U.S. National Security Agency Privacy and Civil Liberties Panel (2014-17).
• Inaugural member of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility Board of Directors (2011 to present).
• Inaugural member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Data Privacy and Integrity Committee Cybersecurity Subcommittee (2009 to present).
• Inaugural member of DARPA Privacy Oversight Board, U.S. Department of Defense (2010-13).
• Member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions of Information for Terrorism Prevention and Other National Goals (2005-08)
• Reporter for American Law Institute project on Principles of the Law of Government Access to and Use of Digital Information (2006-08)
• Member of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board (2003-14)
• Reporter to the Department of Defense Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee (2003-04)
• Member of the Federal Trade Commission Advisory Committee on Online Access and Security (2000)
• Member of the United Nations Working Group on Emergency Telecommunications and principal drafter of the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunications Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations (1994-2002).

Biography

Professor Cate specializes in information privacy and security law issues. He has testified before numerous congressional committees and speaks frequently before professional, industry, and government groups.

In addition to his appointment in the Law School, he is an Adjunct Professor of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University. From 2003 to 2014, he served as the founding director of IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research and Information Assurance Education, where he is now a senior fellow.

Professor Cate currently chairs the National Academies’ study on Law Enforcement and Intelligence Access to Encrypted Content, and he is a member of the National Academies’ Forum on Cyber Resilience as well as many other government, industry, and not-for-profit advisory panels. He serves as a senior policy advisor to the Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton & Williams LLP.

Previously, Professor Cate served as a member of the National Academies’ Committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions of Information for Terrorism Prevention, counsel to the Department of Defense Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee, and a member of the National Security Agency’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Panel, the Federal Trade Commission's Advisory Committee on Online Access and Security, and Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board, among many others. He chaired the International Telecommunication Union's High-Level Experts on Electronic Signatures and Certification Authorities.

The author of more than 150 articles and books, he served as the privacy editor for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Security & Privacy and is one of the founding editors of the Oxford University Press journal, International Data Privacy Law. He is the co-author of a forthcoming book from Oxford University Press, Bulk Collection: Systematic Government Access to Private-Sector Data.

Professor Cate attended Oxford University and received his J.D. and his A.B. with Honors and Distinction from Stanford University. A former Senator and President of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, he is a fellow of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Bar Foundation, and an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute.

In the Media

• Quoted in "Students in nation’s first cybersecurity law program provide legal advice on evolving tech," IU News (2/5/2025)
• Quoted in "New Indiana porn site law faces legal challenge," The Indiana Lawyer (7/2/2024)
• Quoted in "Lawsuit Seeks Injunction On New Age Verification State Law For Porn Sites," WIBC News (6/12/2024)
• Quoted in "Lawsuit aims to block Indiana law on age verification for adult websites," WISH TV News (6/11/2024)
• Quoted in "AI 'Deepfake' Targets Ron DeSantis and 2024 Election," WIOD News Radio (9/12/2023)
• Photo credit "IU researchers diagnose Indianapolis Zoo orangutan with rare genetic disease," IU School of Medicine News (7/31/2023)
• Quoted in "Miami Tribe, Indiana University to co-host National NAGPRA Review Committee Meeting," IU News (5/17/2023)
• Quoted in "Senator Young Introduces Bill to Develop Innovative Materials Critical to Our National Security," WTCA AM1050 (3/27/2023)
• Quoted in "IU med school shuts down research project that used expired supplies on pigs," Indiana Business Journal (3/14/2023)
• Appears on "Indiana Sues TikTok for Misleading Consumers (podcast)," Bloomberg (12/18/2022)
• Quoted in "TikTok Faces 'Pile-On' Pressure From States After Indiana Sues," Bloomberg Law (12/12/2022)
• Quoted in "Faculty Council task force calls for research reorganization pause," Indiana Public Media (11/16/2022)
• Quoted in "GW must boost research and academic profile to join AAU, experts say," GW Hatchet (10/31/2022)
• Quoted in "Cyber Insurance Rates Spiking, Forcing FAs to Make Tough Risk Assessments," Financial Advisor IQ (9/23/2022)
• Mentioned in "Privacy Protection," Daily North Shore (9/21/2022)
• Quoted in "Abortion criminalization could weaponize personal data," Indiana Public Media (6/27/2022)
• Quoted in "Sensitive data from IU Health patients breached by unknown perpetrators," Newsdesk (6/22/2022)
• Quoted in "Suing Zuckerberg Is Easy. Making a Privacy Case Stick Is Harder," Bloomberg Law (5/25/2022)

Selected works

• Data Privacy and Security Law(with Rachel Dockery), in OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CYBER SECURITY (Paul Cornish, Ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
• BULK COLLECTION: SYSTEMATIC GOVERNMENT ACCESS TO PRIVATE-SECTOR DATA (Edited with James X. Dempsey). New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Organizational Accountability, Government Use of Private-Sector Data, National Security, and Individual Privacy (with James X. Dempsey and Martin Abrams), in BULK COLLECTION: SYSTEMATIC GOVERNMENT ACCESS TO PRIVATE-SECTOR DATA (Fred H. Cate and James Dempsey, Eds.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Protecting Privacy in Big Data, 8 JOURNAL OF LAW AND ECONOMIC REGULATION (2015).
• Building a Data Sharing Model for Global Genomic Research, (with Patricia Kossein, et. al.). 15 GENOME BIOLOGY 430 (2014).
• Information Security Threats, Policies, and Law in the United States, 4 BEIHANG LAW REVIEW 191 (2014).
• Notice and Consent in a World of Big Data (with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger), 3 INTERNATIONAL DATA PRIVACY LAW 67 (2013).
• DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: REVISING THE 1980 OECD GUIDELINES (with Peter Cullen and Viktor Mayer-Schonberger). Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Dec. 2013.
• Protecting Privacy in Health Research: The Limits of Individual Choice, 98 CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW 1765 (2010).
• Dos and Don'ts of Data Breach and Information Security Policy (with Martin E. Abrams, Paula J. Bruening & Orson Swindle), Centre for Information Policy Leadership (2009).
• The Conflict Between European Data Protection Laws and U.S. Civil Discovery Rules, IPAA PRIVACY TRACKER, 2008.
• Information Security Breaches: Looking Back & Thinking Ahead, Centre for Information Policy Leadership (2008).
• Government Data Mining: The Need for a Legal Framework, 43 HARVARD CIVIL RIGHTS-CIVIL LIBERTIES LAW REVIEW 435 (2008). [HeinOnline]
• Privacy (with Brooke Barnett), in INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMMUNICATION (Wolfgang Donsbach, Ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008.
• Strategic Information Managment (with Paula Bruening, Lisa Sotto, and Martin Abrams), 7 BNA PRIVACY & SECURITY LAW REPORT 1361 (2008).
• Surreptitious Code and the Law, in CRIMEWARE: UNDERSTANDING NEW ATTACKS AND DEFENSES (Markus Jakobsson & Zulfikar Ramzan, Eds.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2008.
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place: the Conflict Between European Data Protection Laws and U.S. Civil Litigation Document Production Requirements (with Margaret P. Eisenhauer), 7 BNA PRIVACY & SECURITY LAW REPORT 229 (2007).

Related links

• Social Science Research Network
• Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research
• Publications

Areas of expertise

• Information privacy