Privacy, Cybersecurity, and Artificial Intelligence

Steve helps clients address a broad range of privacy and cybersecurity issues, including data mapping, data ownership and monetization, incident management, breach response and recovery, data subject request policies and responses, and privacy notices. He also develops and maintains privacy and cybersecurity policies and procedures that reflect industry best practices and evolving legal requirements.

Steve also counsels clients on AI governance and responsible AI development and use. He helps clients develop practical approaches to AI risk and governance while navigating the evolving legal and regulatory landscape surrounding the development, deployment, and use of AI technologies.

He develops and maintains compliance programs under U.S. and international privacy and security laws, including:

• EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act of 2018 (UK-GDPR)
• California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)
• Virginia Consumer Data Privacy Act (Virginia CDPA)
• Colorado Consumer Privacy Act (Colorado CPA)
• Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Canada’s Anti-SPAM Law (CASL)
• Other state laws governing privacy, data security, data breach notification, and consumer protection, as well as S. sectoral laws such as CAN-SPAM, COPPA, TCPA, and the New York Cybersecurity Regulation

Trusted, Practical, and Actionable Advice

With more than two decades of engineering experience at the cutting edge of technology, Steve is regarded by clients as a trusted advisor. He works closely with R&D, IT, risk, forensics, dark web, communications, and other professionals, as well as senior management, the C-suite, and boards, bringing a practical, multidisciplinary approach that helps clients navigate complex legal frameworks and solve complex technology and business problems.

Prior Experience

Before and during law school, Steve spent more than two decades as an engineer. Most recently, he was a senior staff hardware security engineer at Qualcomm, where he led the design and development of security features for most of Qualcomm’s chip devices used in smartphones, tablets, cellular modems, and other personal computing devices. He was also recognized as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) by Qualcomm’s Government Technologies Division, where he held a U.S. security clearance and helped federal, state, and local government partners understand the security of mobile devices.

Steve’s semiconductor background includes graduate-level training concentrated in VLSI design and systems. At Qualcomm, he served as the lead hardware security engineer for security features across the company’s product line, leading hardware design and verification and contributing throughout the product life cycle, from early customer engagement and requirements definition through design implementation, testing, debugging, and production. He was also Qualcomm’s primary hardware technical point of contact for export compliance involving encryption technology and evaluated license agreements for third-party intellectual property and related statements of work.

Before joining Qualcomm, Steve held a series of ASIC engineering roles across the semiconductor industry. At HIFN, he designed components for security processors, including encryption engines, a core micro-sequencer, and a prefetch engine, and led device enhancements through specification, development, and physical implementation. As a consultant with Technical Directions, he documented and implemented an ASIC development process and directed outsourced ASIC work for Iomega, and led top-level ASIC integration and system debugging for Cadence Design Services. Earlier, he served as lead ASIC engineer for General Instruments’ first two-way cable modem interface ASIC and led the development of a video ASIC at NCR/AT&T.

Steve is an inventor on more than 10 U.S. and international patents in cryptography and security.