Bilal Mohamed

Policy Manager for India, FPF

Bilal serves as a Policy Manager for FPF’s Global Privacy Team and is based in India. He focuses on monitoring and analyzing developments related to the implementation and enforcement of India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, as well as tracking advancements in adjacent policy areas such as artificial intelligence regulation.

Prior to joining FPF, Bilal played a key role in supporting the Office of the Minister of State for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. At the Ministry, he contributed his expertise in legal and policy research, focusing on areas such as data protection, platform regulation, and online gaming.

He has also worked as a researcher at the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG), National Law University Delhi, and the Aapti Institute. While at CCG, he authored policy responses, research reports, and blog posts on issues surrounding data governance and intermediary liability. At Aapti, his research focused on the role of data stewardship models in enhancing the socio-economic value of data while preserving community privacy rights.

Bilal holds an LL.B (Honours) degree from the University of Edinburgh, where his undergraduate thesis focused on defining the contours of India’s constitutional right to privacy. He was also a 2021 Daksha Technology Law and Policy Fellow.

Jules Polonetsky

Chief Executive Officer, FPF

Jules has served for 15 years as CEO of the Future of Privacy Forum, a global non-profit organization that serves as a catalyst for privacy leadership and scholarship, advancing principled data practices in support of emerging technologies.

Jules has led the development of numerous codes of conduct and best practices, assisted in the drafting of data protection legislation and presented expert testimony with agencies and legislatures around the world. He is an IAPP Westin Emeritus Fellow and the 2023 recipient of the IAPP Leadership Award.

Jules has served as an adjunct faculty member for the AI Law & Policy Seminar at William & Mary University Law School. He was also a lecturer in the Privacy Protection Officer course at the Magid Institute, the Faculty of Law and the Federman Center for Cyber ​​Research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jules is co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Privacy, published by Cambridge University Press (2018). More of his writing and research can be found at www.fpf.org and on Google Scholar and SSRN.

Jules has worked on consumer protection issues for 30 years, having served as Chief Privacy Officer at AOL and at DoubleClick, as Consumer Affairs Commissioner for New York City, as an elected New York State Legislator, and as a congressional staffer for then-congressman Charles Schumer.

Jules serves on the Advisory Boards for Georgetown’s Center on Privacy and Technology, Open DP | Harvard University Privacy Tools Project, the California Privacy Lab (University of California), and the George Washington University Law School Privacy and Security Advisory Council. From 2011-2012, Jules served on the Department of Homeland Security Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. He served on the founding board of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and on the boards of a number of privacy and consumer protection organizations including TRUSTe, the Network Advertising Initiative, and the Center for Copyright Information.

Jules practiced law in the New York office of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan from 1989 to 1990. He is a graduate of New York University School of Law and Yeshiva University and is admitted to the Bars of New York and Washington, D.C. Jules is a Certified Information Privacy Professional.

Josh Lee Kok Thong

Managing Director for APAC, FPF

Josh is deeply passionate in the issues at the intersection of law, policy and technology, and is a changemaker in the spheres of the law of tech, and the tech of law.

As a legal architect that hopes to re-shape relationships disrupted by technology, Josh is the Managing Director, Asia-Pacific of the Future of Privacy Forum. In this role, he leads a team furthering FPF’s mission of advancing data protection best practices and the trusted development and use of emerging technologies in the region.

Josh received his LL.M. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2022, where he was named to the Dean’s List for his academic achievements. Josh was also a Richard Buxbaum International Graduate Fellow and a White & Case Kathryn Aguirre Worth Scholar. An active contributor to Berkeley Law’s student body, Josh served as the LL.M. Editor of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal and co-founded B-LIT, Berkeley’s first legal innovation student organisation.

Before postgraduate studies, Josh served for half a decade in the Singapore Government. More recently, he was the Legal Policy Manager for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance in Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Commission, where he managed Singapore’s overall AI governance policies. Before that, Josh was an Assistant Director for Legal Policy in the Ministry of Law, where he drove criminal and civil legislative reform, particularly in technology and online harms. He also practiced as an international arbitration lawyer in a large Singaporean law firm.

As a driver of the tech of law, Josh is the first Chairperson of the Asia-Pacific Legal Innovation and Technology Association (https://alita.legal), a pan-regional industry platform driving legal innovation and technology initiatives in the region. Josh also co-founded LawTech.Asia (https://lawtech.asia) and etpl.asia, organizations that advance thought leadership on law and technology in Asia. In 2019, Josh was identified by Asia Law Portal as one of Asia’s Top 30 Persons to Watch in the business of law.

In addition, Josh is a member of Singapore’s Law Reform Subcommittee for Robotics and AI, where he authored a law reform report on “Criminal Liability, Robots and AI Systems”.  Josh was also a chapter co-author of Law and Technology in Singapore, which was edited by Professor Simon Chesterman, Professor Goh Yihan, and Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang. Given his keen interest in new technologies like AI and its potential impacts on society and governance, Josh is also a voting member of the IEEE P2863 Working Group on Organisational Governance of AI Systems, and holds research roles in the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Management University. He speaks regularly at conferences and dialogues in the law of tech and tech of law ecosystems.