Deborah Hurley is the Principal of the consulting firm she founded in 1996, which advises governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and foundations on advanced science and technology policy, including information and communication policy, cybersecurity, privacy, and human rights in the information society.
She was Director of the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project at Harvard University, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a Senior Research Associate in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) and in the Center for Business and Government (CBG) at Harvard University. Hurley was an official of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France. At the OECD, she had responsibility for identifying emerging legal, economic, social and technological issues related to information and communications technologies, biotechnology, environmental and energy technologies, technology policy, and other advanced technology fields.
Prior to the OECD, Hurley practiced corporate, commercial real estate, and intellectual property law in the United States, including copyright, trade secret, trademark, and computer law. She is the recipient of the 2002 Namur Award, a biennial award given by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) in recognition of outstanding contributions, with international impact, to awareness of the social implications of information technology. Hurley was selected as one of seven finalists in the Policy category of the inaugural World Technology Awards.
She is the author of Pole Star: Human Rights in the Information Society (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, 2003) and "Security and Privacy Laws: The Showstoppers of the Global Information Society" in Masters of the Wired World (Pitman Publishing, 1999), as well as several other publications.
