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Countering Chinese Global Tech Ambitions: U.S.-EU Partnership in Smart Innovation

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As part of NSI’s programming on smart innovation for the 2023 year, our first event of a four-part series on US-EU partnership in technology discussed, “Countering Chinese Global Tech Ambitions: U.S.-EU Partnership in Smart Innovation.”

Panelists:

  • Jane Horvath, Partner & Co-Chair, Privacy, Cybersecurity, and Data Innovation Practice Group, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
  • Jonathan McHale, Vice President, Digital Trade, Computer and Communications Industry Association
  • Nigel Cory, Associate Director for Trade Policy, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
  • Jamil N. Jaffer, Founder & Executive Director, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

Key themes of the discussion included:

  • How the U.S. and our European allies have partnered to advance Transatlantic cooperation in technology and security
  • How both the public and private sectors have cooperated in these efforts
  • The importance of technology innovation and U.S. leadership in the tech space
  • What the U.S. and its allies have done to curb China’s growing presence and influence in technology

 

About Our Speakers:

 

Jane C. Horvath is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  She is a Co-Chair of the firm’s Privacy, Cybersecurity and Data Innovation Practice Group, and a member of the Administrative Law and Regulatory, Artificial Intelligence, Crisis Management, Litigation and Media, Entertainment and Technology Practice Groups.  Having previously served as Apple’s Chief Privacy Officer, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel and the DOJ’s first Chief Privacy Counsel and Civil Liberties Officer, among other positions, Ms. Horvath draws from more than two decades of privacy and legal experience, offering unique in-house counsel and regulatory perspectives to counsel clients as they manage complex technical issues on a global regulatory scale. Ms. Horvath returned to Gibson Dunn after serving as Apple’s Chief Privacy Officer, where she led the company’s regulatory, policy and product strategy on all privacy- and cybersecurity-related legal matters.  In this role, Ms. Horvath shaped and implemented worldwide data protection laws, including in jurisdictions with omnibus privacy laws, such as the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan, as well as jurisdictions considering similar laws, such as the United States and Vietnam.  Ms. Horvath’s practice focuses on counseling involving privacy, cybersecurity and data strategies – particularly those at the forefront of new regulation – and advocacy and strategy with global regulators and policy makers on these same issues.  She brings hands-on practical experience building privacy, cybersecurity and data solutions at the edge of innovation and at a global scale.  Ms. Horvath has extensive knowledge regarding encryption and related global laws and has been deeply involved in providing comments in response to the European Union Digital Markets Act and pending competition legislation in the United States, Japan and Australia.  She has extensive experience implementing encryption into different product applications and defending encryption against U.S. and global government access requests – issues that are top of mind right now for technology companies.  Additionally Ms. Horvath has an immense understanding of government surveillance and data localization laws. Before joining Apple, Ms. Horvath was Global Privacy Counsel at Google from 2007 to 2011.  Ms. Horvath served as the U.S. Department of Justice’s first Chief Privacy Counsel and Civil Liberties Officer from 2006 to 2007, and, in that capacity, worked on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an executive agency established in the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.  While at the DOJ, she was also a member of the High-Level Contact Group and leader of the U.S. delegation of experts tasked with exploring common ground between the European Union’s Third Pillar data protection principles and U.S. federal privacy laws.  From 1995 to 2001, Ms. Horvath was the General Counsel of Digital City Inc., an America Online, Inc. (AOL) subsidiary, and Assistant General Counsel to AOL, where she helped draft the company’s first privacy policies.  Ms. Horvath started her legal career as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in 1991. Ms. Horvath is a recognized thought-leader in the areas of privacy and technology, frequently appearing as a keynote speaker and on panels hosted by global regulators and leading policy organizations.  She is routinely sought out by public boards, executives, and policy makers for strategic advice on privacy and cybersecurity matters. Ms. Horvath received her J.D. from the University of Virginia and her Bachelor of Science from the College of William and Mary.

Jonathan McHale is the Vice President, Digital Trade at CCIA, where he leads the Association’s digital trade advocacy in the United States and international fora. Until 2022, he was the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for ICT Services and Digital Trade. He has two decades of experience working to open foreign markets in the telecommunications and digital trade sectors at both the Department of State and USTR, through policy development, negotiation, enforcement, and dispute settlement. He was the lead negotiator for the USMCA Digital Trade chapter, the Telecommunications and Electronic Commerce issues in the Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA, as well as KORUS, AUSFTA, and the Singapore-U.S. FTA. He was responsible for digital issues in the U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiations, and continues to lead the formulation of policy on trade-related aspects of electronic commerce in WTO and regional organizations, and the enforcement ICT and digital trade commitments in the WTO. Prior to joining USTR, he served as an economic officer at the Department of State in Tokyo, Washington D.C. and Paris. He holds a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. in international relations from Columbia University.

Nigel Cory is an associate director covering trade policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. He focuses on cross-border data flows, data governance, intellectual property, and how they each relate to digital trade and the broader digital economy. Cory has provided in-person testimony and written submissions and has published reports and op-eds relating to these issues in the United States, the European Union, Australia, China, India, and New Zealand, among other countries and regions, and he has completed research projects for international bodies such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and the World Trade Organization. Nigel is a member of the United Kingdom’s International Data Transfer Expert Council. Cory previously worked as a researcher in the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to that, he worked for eight years in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which included positions working on G20 global economic and trade issues and the Doha Development Round. Cory also had diplomatic postings in Malaysia, where he worked on bilateral and regional trade, economic, and security issues, and in Afghanistan, where he was the deputy director of a joint U.S.-Australia provincial reconstruction team. Cory holds a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in international business and commerce from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

Jamil N. Jaffer (Moderator): Jamil N. Jaffer is the founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He previously served as chief counsel and senior adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and, among other roles, as an associate counsel to President George W. Bush in the White House.