Woodrow Hartzog
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Woodrow Hartzog is a Boston University legal scholar whose work addresses privacy, technology design and AI governance. His AI-related scholarship examines the collection and reuse of personal data, facial recognition and whether individual choices can provide adequate protection against powerful automated systems.[1][2]
Roles and affiliations
Hartzog is the Andrew R. Randall Professor of Law at Boston University. His institutional biography records congressional testimony on data privacy and service on the Massachusetts Special Commission on Facial Recognition. It also lists advisory-board roles at the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Future of Privacy Forum. These advisory affiliations should be distinguished from executive leadership of those organizations.[1]
Contributions and positions
Beyond privacy as individual control
In Kafka in the Age of AI and the Futility of Privacy as Control (2024), co-authored with Daniel Solove, Hartzog challenges the idea that giving people more control over data is sufficient. The authors argue that institutional arrangements can leave individuals unable to protect themselves even where formal choices exist.[2]
Their analysis uses Kafka's depiction of people confronting opaque authority to examine digital vulnerability. They favor rules governing the collection, use and disclosure of information at a societal level, rather than making individual decision-making the central protective mechanism. This is an argument about the design of privacy law, not a claim that existing rights to consent, access or deletion have no legal effect.[2]
Scraping and AI training data
In The Great Scrape (2025), also with Solove, Hartzog examines the collection of personal information from publicly accessible internet sources. The article connects scraping for AI and other purposes with privacy principles including transparency, consent, limits on collection and restrictions on later uses.[3]
The authors dispute the assumption that public accessibility removes legitimate privacy interests. Their analysis treats large-scale aggregation and reuse as consequential activities in their own right. It asks how law should respond when information supplied in one context is repurposed into datasets and systems that individuals cannot meaningfully oversee. Their proposed approach must be distinguished from the outcome of any particular scraping lawsuit.[3]
Selected works
- Privacy's Blueprint: The Battle to Control the Design of New Technologies (2018) — book; bibliographic information is available through the faculty profile.[1]
- Kafka in the Age of AI and the Futility of Privacy as Control (2024), with Daniel Solove — abstract and article download.[2]
- The Great Scrape: The Clash Between Scraping and Privacy (2025), with Daniel Solove — full journal text.[3]
Coverage
Boston University's biography documents Hartzog's public-policy service and affiliations; its bibliography supplies a broader record of writing on AI, automated law enforcement and biometric privacy. The journal records above identify his co-authored scholarship separately from institutional coverage.[1]
Related articles
- Daniel Solove
- Electronic Privacy Information Center
- Amba Kak
- Lina Khan
- Transparency and data protection
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Boston University School of Law, Woodrow Hartzog, faculty biography and bibliography. Accessed September 12, 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Daniel Solove and Woodrow Hartzog, Kafka in the Age of AI and the Futility of Privacy as Control, 104 Boston University Law Review 1021 (2024), abstract and download. Accessed September 12, 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Daniel J. Solove and Woodrow Hartzog, The Great Scrape: The Clash Between Scraping and Privacy, California Law Review, October 2025. Accessed September 12, 2026.