“That really is a dream that I had for years and didn’t think was ever going to happen, and when I saw that job I had to apply for it,” said Givens, who joined North Carolina in December 2021 as its inaugural chief privacy officer (CPO). “I will always be grateful for the opportunity to have had that, to be able to create that program and build it as much as I could in the time that I was there.”
As CPO, Givens not only created the state Office of Privacy and Data Protection, but she shaped the services it offered, including privacy guidance consultation, procurement review, privacy incident and breach response support, and help aligning with federal privacy regulations.
She also steered the adoption, in May 2022, of a set of eight Fair Information Practice Principles that guide how data entrusted to the state is handled. In August 2024, she led the adoption of the North Carolina State Government Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence Framework. Under her leadership, the state stood up two privacy websites: one detailing those eight principles, with links to privacy law and policy and privacy tips for consumers, and the other on artificial intelligence. North Carolina also embedded privacy points of contact across its enterprise and, with assistance from the state CIO, secured privacy program manager training and licensing for them.
Having left state service in February 2025, Givens, a longtime university lecturer on topics including governance and privacy, is updating her 2014 book Information Privacy Fundamentals for Librarians and Information Professionals and completing a second book on privacy.
“I’ve always been a big proponent of people’s privacy,” Givens said. “And I also think, as Americans, we tend to think we have privacy rights that maybe we don’t.”
This story originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Government Technology magazine. Click here to view the full digital edition online.
