RALEIGH – North Carolina has hired the state’s first chief privacy officer in what the North Carolina Department of Information Technology called “an effort to tighten privacy practices and further protect data from cyberattacks” in a statement.
Cherie Givens was appointed by the state’s chief information officer, Jim Weaver, to fill the role of chief privacy officer.
Cherie Givens JD, PhD, CIPP. Image: LinkedIn profile image.
“Security is critical, and everything we do has to be built on the foundation of cybersecurity and privacy,” said Weaver, who is also secretary for the N.C. Department of Information Technology (NCDIT), in the statement. “We have a tremendous responsibility to ensure that we are keeping identities and data secure and private.”
Givens is a certified information privacy professional and an attorney with more than two decades of experience, and joins state government after roles supporting federal privacy programs, including for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Government Publishing Office and the U.S. Department of Defense, according to the statement and a LinkedIn profile.
In additional, Givens has taught courses in information sciences at multiple institutions of higher education, and a published author of books and book chapters on topics of cybersecurity and information privacy.
