The Online Privacy Debate: Top Twitter Influencers To Follow

Takeaway: With SOPA, PIPA and a never ending list of legislation, online privacy is one of the most important and intensely debated subjects in technology.

Check out these top privacy influencers, read what they have to say and add your own voice to the online privacy debate.

Why this list? If you search for "privacy" on Twitter, there are some experts, but also a lot of junk. So, we decided to compile a list of the most influential voices in the online privacy debate.

The list is based on Twitter data culled according to content, follower/following ratios, frequency of tweets, blog popularity, the opinions of other privacy experts and our own subjective judgment.

One note: There are influential voices who are not included because they don't have active Twitter accounts or they only tweet about privacy sparingly. Our goal with this is to provide the best possible stream of news and insight in the privacy debate. While no list will ever be 100 percent on-topic, this factor does eliminate some who tweet on a wider range of subjects.

Did we miss somebody? Let us know.

A
Aaron Titus - Counsel/VP of Business Development for Identity Finder. Privacy Director at Liberty Coalition, George Washington University Law School.

Alex Howard - Washington correspondent for O'Reilly Media and @Radar

Ann Cavoukian Ph.D. - Information and Privacy Commissioner-Ontario, Canada

Anonymous - You might not agree with their tactics, but it's tough to deny that Anonymous continues to be on the front lines of the online privacy war

Ashkan Soltani - Independent researcher and consultant focused on privacy, security and behavioral economics

B
Berin Szoka - President of @TechFreedom

C
CDT (Center for Democracy & Technology) - Working to keep the Internet open, innovative and free

Choose Privacy Week - Privacy initiative of the American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom

Christopher Soghoian - DC-based Open Society Fellow, supported by the Open Society Foundations. Graduate Fellow at the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.

Common Sense Media - Dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the world of media and technology

Cory Doctorow - Co-editor of Boing Boing and contributor to The Guardian, The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Wired and many other publications and websites. Former director of European affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

D
Daniel J. Solove - Law professor at George Washington University Law School and expert in information privacy law

Danny Weitzner - White House Deputy Chief technology Officer for Internet Policy and on leave from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab

Delbius (Del Harvey) - Twitter @Safety team lead focused on policies and legal risks

Deven McGraw - Director of the Health Privacy Project at CDT

dotRights Campaign - ACLU campaign for copyright freedom

E
EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) - Works to defend civil liberties in a digital world

EPIC and EPICprivacy (Electronic Privacy Information Center) - Focuses public attention on emerging privacy and civil liberty issues

Elinor Mills - Internet security and privacy reporter for CNET

European Digital Rights (EDRi) - Promotes, protects and upholds fundamental human rights and freedom in the digital environment

G
Google Public Policy - Google's public policy team blog and hub

Glenn Greenwald - Named by The Atlantic as one of the 25 most influential political commentators in the nation

J
Jeff Jarvis - Journalism professor and buzzmachine.com blogger/author

Jennifer Granick - Attorney and Director of Civil Liberties for the Center for Internet and Society (CIS). Former EFF Civil Liberties Director.

Jim Brock - Works to make online privacy easier with tools for sites, app developers and those they serve

Jules Polonetsky - Director of the Future of Privacy Forum, former CPO at AOL and DoubleClick and former consumer affairs commissioner for New York City

Julian Sanchez - DC-based writer/journalist covering the intersection of privacy, technology and politics. Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, contributing editor for Reason magazine and contributor to The Economist's Democracy in America blog.

K
Kashmir Hill - Privacy guru at Forbes and former editor of Above the Law

Kim Zetter - Senior reporter for Wired covering cybercrime, civil liberties, privacy and security

M
Michael Geist - University of Ottawa law professor and internationally syndicated technology law columnist for the Toronto Star and Ottawa Citizen

Mike Masnick - CEO and founder of Techdirt

Microsoft Security - Inside view of Microsoft's security and privacy efforts

N
Natalie Fonseca - Co-founder and executive producer of Tech Policy Summit and Privacy Identity Innovation

O
Omer Tene - Legal consultant and law professor. Member of the Future of Privacy Forum's advisory board, European advisory board of IAPP and Editorial Board of International Data Privacy Law (IDPL).

Open Rights Group - The UK’s leading voice defending freedom of expression, privacy, innovation, creativity and consumer rights on the Web. European Digital Rights (EDRi) member organization.

P
Parker Higgins - EFF activist. Operator of @drones.

Paul Ohm - University of Colorado Law School professor specializing in information privacy, computer crime law, intellectual property and criminal procedure

Peter Swire - DC-based law professor at Ohio State University, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Policy Fellow at the CDT

PogoWasRight (Dissent Doe) - Privacy/data breach blogger (pogowasright.org, databreaches.net, phiprivacy.net). Curator and researcher for the Open Security Foundation/DataLossDB.org project.

Privacy Camp - News on privacy and privacy conferences worldwide. Founded by @ShaunDakin - co-founder of #PrivChat.

Privacy International - Works to defend the right to privacy across the world and fights unlawful surveillance and other intrusions into private life by government and corporation entities

Privacy Related News - Shares news related to privacy, intellectual property and constitutional rights

PRC (Privacy Rights Clearinghouse) - Nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to protecting the privacy of American consumers

ProPublica Privacy - Covers digital privacy, security and freedom investigations. Led by Paul Steiger, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, Stephen Engelberg, former managing editor of The Oregonian and former investigative editor of The New York Times, and Richard Tofel, former assistant publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

R
Rebecca Herold - Renowned HIPAA expert and blogger. Computerworld top privacy adviser (2010). Top 50 law professor.

Rebecca MacKinnon - Writer, Internet freedom activist and author of "Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom"

Ryan Calo - University of Washington law professor and author of "The Boundaries of Privacy Harm" and "People Can Be So Fake: A New Dimension to Privacy and Technology Scholarship"

Ryan Singel - Editor of Wired's Threat Level blog. Founder of Stealth.

S
Shaun Dakin - Partner at Webbmedia Group and innovator @PrivacyCamp and @EndTheRobocalls

Sunlight Foundation - Working to change the relationship between citizens and their government with Internet technology

T
Tech@FTC - Official Twitter feed of FTC’s Chief Technologist, Ed Felten. Tweets do not represent views of @ftc.

Techdirt - Dynamic interactive community focused on changes in technology, legal issues and policy

Trevor Timm - Activist and blogger at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Also runs @drones.

W
WSJ's What They Know - The Wall Street Journal's news, features and information about digital privacy

Wikileaks - Nonprofit organization reporting news through a secure and anonymous electronic dropbox that allows sources to report information to journalists

World Privacy Forum - Non-profit public interest research group that focuses on privacy and technology issues