Anne Toomey McKenna

Anne Toomey McKenna (she/her) is a licensed attorney, researcher, and Law Professor working for over two decades at the interdisciplinary intersection of technology, privacy, and law. Professor McKenna is currently a Visiting Law Professor at Richmond Law, where she teaches Evidence, Cyberlaw in Practice (a course she developed), and Information Privacy Law; she has also taught Civil Procedure. She is Affiliated Faculty with Penn State University’s Institute for Computational & Data Sciences and was formerly Penn State Dickinson Law’s Distinguished Scholar of Cyber Law & Policy. Professor McKenna is the Co-Chair of the AI Policy Committee for the world’s largest technical professional organization, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and Co-Chair of IEEE’s Privacy, Equity, and Justice in AI Subcommittee.

As part of her work educating, researching, writing, and advising about cutting edge legal and societal issues surrounding privacy, data, technology (including machine learning and artificial intelligence), and surveillance, Professor McKenna collaborates regularly with agency, business, institution, and policy leaders at the highest levels. Professor McKenna brings extensive experiential depth and understanding to her work in these interdisciplinary subjects. That depth and understanding flows from her extensive research, publications, and legal teaching experience combined with her two-plus decades of work as a trial attorney representing clients and handling complex civil litigation in federal and state courts in Maryland and Washington, D.C. That experience includes handling and advising about matters that involve:

• emerging technologies and the law, including artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and biometric identification systems
• electronic searches and surveillance, electronic evidence
• federal electronic surveillance and hacking laws, including ECPA and CFAA, and state legislation involving data privacy, surveillance, tracking, and evidence
• data practices, data privacy laws, and data breach
• satellite surveillance and data (geodata, geolocation, geofences), and cellular tracking
• online content and speech issues (including Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act,
• mis- and disinformation), website policies, and compliance
• tort and contract-based privacy claims; school and workplace privacy

Professor McKenna is the lead faculty creator of Principles of Cyber Law & Policy, an open access course developed via grant from the National Security Agency to improve U.S. citizens’ resiliency in the cyber era. She also served as the Principal Legal Consultant for the National Police Foundation and Department of Justice-COPS’s initiative, the Use of UAVs (drones) in Community Policing.

Professor McKenna’s published works on law and surveillance, privacy, data, evidence, and emerging technologies are regularly cited in published opinions by federal and state courts across the U.S., and relied upon by judges, attorneys, businesses, and policy makers in navigating these complex and evolving areas of law. Her publications include:
• Jones on Evidence, 7th Ed., Fishman, Clifford S, & McKenna, Anne Toomey (Thomson Reuters), cited by numerous federal and state courts including the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the First, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh Circuits, and the District of Columbia Circuit
• Wiretapping & Eavesdropping: Surveillance in the Internet Age, McKenna, Anne Toomey & Fishman, Clifford S. (West/Thomson/Reuters) cited by numerous federal and state courts including the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits
• The Role of Satellites and Smart Devices: Data Surprises and Security, Privacy, and Regulatory Challenges, 123 Penn State L. Rev. 591 (2019), McKenna, Anne Toomey; Gaudion, Amy C.; Evans, Jenni L.
• Pass Parallel Privacy Standards or Privacy Perishes, McKenna, Anne T., 65 Rutgers L. Rev. 1041 (2013)

Her work has also appeared in Blink-an Atlantic publication, The Conversation, and Science Node. Professor McKenna’s news media interviews and quotes include NPR’s Morning Edition, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, the New York Post, Vice, Bloomberg Law/Radio, and NBC, FOX, and CBS news. She is also one of the lead interviewees in the 2020 documentary, Interference: Democracy at Risk. Among her pro bono work, Professor McKenna has represented victims of revenge porn and online stalking, and she helped obtain a published First Amendment victory in Connecticut’s Supreme Court for a murder victim’s family’s right to post missing posters.

Professor McKenna is licensed to practice in federal and state courts in Maryland and the District of Columbia.