Marc Rotenberg

The Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) aims to promote a better society, more fair, more just — "a world where technology promotes broad social inclusion based on fundamental rights, democratic institutions, and the rule of law." CAIDP began as a project of the Michael Dukakis Institute. CAIDP has provided AI policy advice to many organizations around the world, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the American Law Institute, the Council of Europe Committee on AI, the Club de Madrid, the European Commission and the European Parliament, the European Law Institute, the G7 and the G20, the Global Partnership on AI, the Government of Colombia, the National Security Commission on AI (US), the National AI Advisory Committee (US), the Organization of American States, the US Office of Science and Technology Policy, and many others.

In 2020, CAIDP published "Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values," the first comparative review of national AI policies and practices.^[5] CAIDP also began publication of the CAIDP Update,^[6] and hosting monthly Conversations with AI policy experts, authors, and artists. In 2021, CAIDP launched the first AI policy clinic and issued certificates to a dozen participants who completed a course in AI policy analysis.

By the Fall of 2025, CAIDP had established a research network of more than 1,500 participants in 120 countries. There were over 1,500 applicants to the Fall 2025 AI Policy Group. The 2025 Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values Index covered 80 countries and ran over 1,500 pages.^[7] There are now more than 90,000 subscribers to the weekly CAIDP Update and 85,000 followers on LinkedIn. According to LinkedIn, CAIDP ranked behind only the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI among the leading AI Policy organizations in the world.^[8]

Marc Rotenberg was president and executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), an independent, public interest research center in Washington, D.C., which he co-founded in 1994. EPIC was involved with a wide range of civil liberties, consumer protection, and human rights issues.

Rotenberg was forced out of his position at EPIC in April 2020 following reports that he had continued going to work despite learning he might have COVID-19.^[2][9][10]

Rotenberg filed suit against EPIC in DC Superior Court. In October 2020, Rotenberg and EPIC stipulated to dismissal of the case. Rotenberg subsequently filed a 76-page complaint in Federal District Court against Protocol and POLITICO.^[11] In March 2023, a federal court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.^[12]

Marc Rotenberg has served on many national and international advisory panels, including the expert panels on Cryptography Policy and Computer Security for the OECD, the Legal Experts on Cyberspace Law for UNESCO, and the Countering Spam program of the ITU. He is a former chair of the ABA Committee on Privacy and Information Protection. He is a member of the International Working Group on Data Protection in Telecommunications, the FREE Group (European Area of Freedom Security & Justice), and other organizations dedicated to the protection of fundamental rights.

In 2021, Rotenberg was named to the Reference Panel of the Global Privacy Assembly (the global network of privacy officials and experts) and the CAHAI (the AI expert panel of the Council of Europe). In May, he was shortlisted (#2) for the post of UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Privacy. In June, he received the ACM Policy Award for “long-standing high impact leadership on privacy and technology policy.”^[13] In December, Rotenberg was named as an expert for the Global Partnership on AI for a three-year term and also a Fulbright Specialist for a four-year term. Marc was recently named to expert panels for the Center for European Policy Studies (EU-US data flows), the OECD (AI, privacy, and data protection), and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

Marc Rotenberg has helped establish several organizations that promote public understanding of computer technology and encourage civil society participation in decisions concerning the future of the Internet. These include the Public Interest Computer Association (1983),^[14] Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (1985), the conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (1991),^[15] the Public Voice Coalition (1996), the Public Interest Registry (2003), the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council to the OECD (CSISAC) (2009),^[16] and the EPIC Public Voice Fund (2018).

Marc Rotenberg is co-editor of Privacy in the Modern Age: The Search for Solutions (The New Press 2015), a collection of articles on the future of privacy.^[17] Other books include The Privacy Law Sourcebook: United States Law, International Law, and Recent Developments (EPIC 2020),^[18] Privacy and Human Rights: An International Survey of Privacy Laws and Developments (EPIC 2006), Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws (EPIC 2010), Information Privacy Law (Aspen Publishing 2007) and "Privacy and Technology: The New Frontier" (MIT Press 1999). Rotenberg has also published articles and commentaries in legal, technical, and popular journals, including the ACS Supreme Court Review, Communications of the ACM, Computers & Society, CNN, Costco Connect, the Duke Law Journal, the Economist, the European Data Protection Review, The Financial Times, Fortune, the Indiana Law Review, the Harvard Business Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Harvard International Review, Issues in Science and Technology, the Japan Economic Forum, the Minnesota Law Review, Newsweek, Scientific American, the Stanford Technology Law Review, Techonomy, and USA Today, among others.

Marc is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School, and received an LL.M. in international and comparative law from Georgetown Law. At Harvard, he was a founding editor of the Harvard International Review and a head teaching fellow in computer science. At Stanford he was an articles editor of the Stanford Law Review and president of the Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation. He was also the research assistant to A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., when the Judge and former FTC Commissioner (the first African American appointed as a commissioner on any regulatory commission) was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School. He served as counsel to Senator Patrick J. Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee after graduation from law school. He is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Sustaining Member of the European Law Institute, and the recipient of several awards, including the Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility, the American Lawyer Top Lawyers Under 45, and the Vicennial Medal (2012) for distinguished service from Georgetown University. He was included in the "Lawdragon 500", a listing of the leading lawyers in America, and received the ABA Cyberspace Law Excellence Award, the World Technology Award for Law, and the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology Award for Outstanding Contribution to Law and Technology.

Marc Rotenberg grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. His brother Jonathan Rotenberg founded the Boston Computer Society at age 13. Marc is married to Anna Markopoulos Rotenberg, a former economist and now ESL teacher in the District of Columbia and Alexandria Public Schools. A tournament chess player, Marc is a three-time Washington, D.C., chess Champion (2007, 2008, 2010) and works to promote chess in the DC public schools in cooperation with the US Chess Center, ChessGirlsDC, and the newly established DC Chess Association.^[19] Rotenberg is also a licensed US Coast Guard captain.