Alan F. Westin is Professor of Public Law & Government Emeritus, Columbia University, former publisher of Privacy & American Business, and former President of the Center for Social & Legal Research.
Westin's research at Columbia University in the 1960s is widely seen as the first significant work on the problem of consumer data privacy and data protection. Westin defined privacy as an individual’s right “to control, edit, manage, and delete information about them[selves] and decide when, how, and to what extent information is communicated to others.”
Westin’s major books on privacy —- Privacy and Freedom (1967) and Databanks in a Free Society (1972) -- were pioneering works that prompted U.S. privacy legislation and helped launch global privacy movements in many democratic nations in the 1960s and 70s. He has also specialized in studying the impact of information technologies on national and local governmental operations, from decision-making to citizen services and freedom of information administration, illustrated by his 1971 book, Information Technology in a Democracy.
During the 1970s, Westin edited the Civil Liberties Review, a bimonthly publican of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, from his home in Teaneck, New Jersey.[1]
In 2005, Westin received the Privacy Leadership Award of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, the leading U.S. organization of business, government, and non-profit privacy officers.
In 1993, with Washington attorney Robert Belair, Dr. Westin founded Privacy & American Business, a non-profit think tank that provided expert analysis and a balanced voice on business-privacy issues. P&AB published a bi-monthly newsletter; conducted an annual national conference in Washington on “Managing The Privacy Revolution”; and led a Corporate Privacy Leadership Program and a Global Business Privacy Policies Project. P&AB also managed privacyexchange.org – a global Internet web site on consumers, commerce, and data protection worldwide, covering privacy developments in over 100 nations. The Center finished its work in the Fall of 2006. [2]