Privacy Corner: Ward’s journey from law enforcement to privacy law – FTCWatch

As a computer forensics examiner in California, Steven Ward had unfiltered access to people’s innermost thoughts through their technology. That led him down a path to work as a privacy and security fellow with R Street, a free market think tank.

Ward spent a decade in law enforcement in the patrol unit, and as a detective, ultimately working as a computer forensic examiner and a member of the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crime Task Force and Sacramento Internet Crimes Against Children’s Task Force.

That’s where his current interest in privacy and cybersecurity was “ignited from a Fourth Amendment curiosity,” Ward told FTCWatch in an interview.

“Having access to someone’s cell phone or computer while armed with a search warrant truly opens a window into someone’s soul,” Ward said.

During his time as a computer forensics examiner, there were a series of legal battles over police access to people’s cell phones, including the landmark Supreme Court case Riley v. California, where the high court ruled police must have a search warrant for someone’s cell phone.

The 2014 unanimous decision that required police to get a search warrant to check people’s phones spurred a controversial discussion within the ranks, where many officers thought the process to get a search warrant could impede their investigations, Ward said. Previously, because cell phones would be found on someone at the time of arrest, police could search them without a warrant, just as they searched people’s pockets.

When he stopped to think about it, “I actually agree that a search warrant should be required,” Ward said. “Thinking of myself, I’d rather my house be searched – which would require a search warrant than my cell phone be searched, which before this case, it could be.”

He decided to pursue a law career. In law school as a California resident, Ward also found himself looking into privacy laws as a voter because in November 2020 residents approved Proposition 24, the California Privacy Rights Act.

“Going in speaking, connecting with people that are in the middle of actually writing these laws, was just fascinating,” Ward said.

Now, working on R Street’s Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats team, “one of my goals has been to highlight the need for a comprehensive federal data privacy and security law to help with the growing state patchwork of privacy laws. And, of course, we are a free market think tank encouraging legislation to align with limited government and free market values,” Ward shared.

He’s particularly interested in the nexus between privacy and national security, which he recently explored in an op-ed explaining why California needs to get on board with a federal privacy law to help better secure the state.

It’s important to ensure everyone across the country that is so interconnected has baseline cybersecurity protections, he said. Because “although we’re covering California, someone in say Alabama is not covered, and there are implications to our infrastructure. And things like that could hurt Californians if someone from Alabama’s sensitive information or data got into the wrong hands, and they were exploited,” Ward said.

Leaders in California have instead opposed a federal privacy law that would preempt the CPRA, but Ward hopes they “take a seat at the table and talk to these individuals. And help craft it in the way that you think would be a strong law, whatever that is, get to the table and talk about these issues.”