Jolynn Dellinger Faculty Profile - Duke University Science & Society

Jolynn Dellinger, J.D.

Senior Lecturing Fellow of Law

Core faculty, Duke Science & Society

Privacy & Ethics Lead

Jolynn Dellinger is a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law and the Duke Initiative for Science & Society where she works in the area of privacy, ethics, and technology. She is a member of the Future of Privacy Forum Advisory Board and the Board of Directors for the Triangle Privacy Research Hub.

She is the founding program manager for Data Privacy Day – a globally recognized event to raise awareness about privacy, and she has recently served as Special Counsel for Privacy Law and Policy for the NC Department of Justice.

Research, Education, and Engagement

Education

J.D. / M.A. Law & Women’s Studies
Duke University, 1993

B.A. English
Columbia University, 1989

Select Publications

You Are Being Scanned, Judicature

Privacy in Peril, Verfassungsblog

The Impotence of the Fourth Amendment in a Post-Roe World, Lawfare

The Criminalization of Abortion and Surveillance of Women in a Post-Dobbs World, Brookings

Pandemic Surveillance: Privacy, Security, and Data Ethics – Ch. 13 Pandemic Ethics: the intersection of technology, trust, and privacy, and implications for marginalized communities

Teaching

BIOETHIC 590S: Privacy, Ethics, Data & technology

LAW 611-56: Privacy in a Post-Dobbs World

PUBPOL 614: Privacy and Ethical Decision-Making in Our Digital Era

LAW 331: Introduction to Privacy Law and Policy

ARTICLES & CHAPTERS

Bodies of Evidence:

The Criminalization of Abortion and Surveillance of Women in a Post-Dobbs World

In the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, state laws criminalizing abortion raise concerns about the investigation and prosecution of women seeking reproductive health care and about the surveillance such investigations will entail. State statutes criminalizing abortion, coupled with surveillance methods and technologies that did not exist pre-Roe present new and complex challenges surrounding the protection of women’s privacy and liberty interests—in addition to the interests of those who may provide or help pregnant people obtain reproductive care.

This article, taking lessons about the surveillance of women from the pre-Roe era of abortion criminalization, is the first to evaluate new and existing laws criminalizing abortion post-Dobbs and consider how modern technologies directed toward the investigation of individuals self-managing abortions through medication will magnify the pervasiveness, scale, and harm of such surveillance.

ARTICLES & CHAPTERS

The Handbook of Mental Health Communication

In the Handbook of Mental Health Communication, a panel of leading scholars from multiple disciplines presents a comprehensive overview of theory and research at the intersection of mass communication and mental health.

Dellinger contributed Chapter 15 “Mental Health Apps and Privacy: Misunderstandings and Messaging” which explains how mental health data privacy protections are extremely limited in our information economy and how our current regulatory approach is not designed to enable the promise of mental health apps. Then she goes on to provide detail on how clinicians and providers, app developers and companies, people seeking care, and federal and state legislators can take steps to protect the sensitive mental health information collected through the use of these apps.

Q&A

What drew you into bioethics and policy work?

I have been working in the privacy area since 2007. Information privacy is deeply entwined with technology and data collection, and the lackluster legal approach to privacy protection in the US has left us remarkably reliant on ethics and policy as drivers of best practices.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to serve as the Stephen and Janet Bear Visiting Lecturer at the Kenan Institute for Ethics here at Duke where I developed and taught a privacy and tech ethics curriculum and ran the ReImagining Tech fellowship program. Afterward, Nita Farahany gave me the chance to continue that privacy and tech ethics work at Science and Society.

What is the most interesting or challenging bioethics and/or policy issue on your radar this year?

The intersection of mental health and technology presents innumerable challenging ethical and policy issues in the privacy space. A proliferation of mental health and wellness apps, and increasing reports of people using generative AI products and chatbots as “friends”, companions, mentors and therapists create serious concerns in a substantially under-regulated privacy environment.

I am especially concerned about young people using this tech. Loneliness, anxiety and depression seem to be at an all time high, and ethical apps and products that could help alleviate these problems would be beneficial; but mental health apps and chatbots are typically not covered by HIPAA, our notice and consent paradigm is ineffectual, and the risks to people’s personal, highly sensitive information are substantial. I think we should be rethinking, as a society, the obligations commercial entities should have toward their users.

What research projects are you currently engaged with?

I am continuing to explore the severe privacy and surveillance consequences of the criminalization of abortion in the wake of the Dobbs decision. States that have banned and criminalized abortion also tend to lack comprehensive sex education programs, and to have the highest rates of unwanted and teen pregnancy, STDs, infant and maternal mortality.

Access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care (not just abortion) is also increasingly compromised in these states; maternal health care deserts expand as a result of criminalization – a fact that endangers every single person in need of healthcare. Physical, informational and decisional privacy are all implicated by these developments.

What motivates your teaching and research today?

When it comes to privacy, I believe we are where we are in large part because of choices we have made (about laws, regulations, technology, and design) and that a more nuanced and robust understanding of privacy and the risks associated with a loss of privacy should cause us to make different choices.

What are you best known for among students, friends, and colleagues?

Wild guess? A passion for privacy!

Can you summarize your teaching philosophy in a couple sentences?

I want people to read widely and think critically, to engage with important topics that affect people’s everyday lives, to write effectively, and to put themselves in a position – through learning – to make a difference in the world.

What is your favorite part about teaching at Duke University?

Two things: Students come to my classes from law, business, public policy, engineering, comp sci, undergrad and international backgrounds – I love the students! And I love having a job that requires me to continue to learn (on a daily basis) about a rapidly changing field.

When you're not teaching, where might we find you?

Reading. (I’m short on hobbies.)

What is your favorite quote?

“the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

– F Scott Fitzgerald, from “The Crack-Up”

Dellinger enjoys a good FLUNCH

But she’d enjoy a walk even more if you’re open!

The FLUNCH (faculty + lunch) program is designed to encourage student-faculty interaction outside the classroom. Through the program, undergraduates can invite their faculty and/or course instructors to a free lunch at one of many dining locations across campus.