Sydney Saubestre is a senior policy analyst leading the data and privacy work at New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI). Her work centers privacy and responsible data use, ensuring that emerging technologies serve the public good while protecting vulnerable communities.
Sydney’s writing and analysis has appeared in Foreign Policy, U.S. News, and Ms. Magazine, among other outlets. She is a member of Privacy Thought Leaders, and serves on the Institute for Data Democracy and Politics Council on Data Ethics, as well as the National Science Foundation funded Privacy-Enhancing Technology Research Coordination Network. She also represents OTI on multiple technology policy, privacy rights, and education data coalitions.
Prior to joining New America, Sydney worked across sectors—in government, nonprofit organizations, and academic research institutes—on a wide breadth of policy issues impacting women and children. While at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), she was a Mellon Fellow in Critical Data Studies, where she worked on open-source data access and helped design a new minor in critical data studies. She also conducted research in partnership with the ACLU SoCal on quantifying the impacts of digital surveillance on high school students in the United States.
Previously, she worked at UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center on foster care reforms to better support youth who experienced Commercial Sexual Exploitation. During her time at the Oakland Mayor’s Office, she implemented a city-wide higher education initiative, after which she completed a Coro Fellowship in Public Policy. She holds bachelor’s in economics and anthropology from The New School and a master’s in public policy from UCLA.