Facebook’s chief privacy officer works to keep 1 billion friends in the loop

A profile of Erin Egan. She joined Facebook in September 2011 and became the company chief privacy officer for policy, located in the nation’s capital.

The company needed her. Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has amassed a mountainous hoard of user data and has been scrutinized by lawmakers and federal regulators for how it uses that data and keeps it private. Egan’s job is to help explain the company’s privacy policies to its gigantic user base, which reached 1 billion monthly active users in October. She also ensures that feedback from lawmakers and regulators is incorporated into Facebook’s policies and weighs the privacy implications of new products the social network is looking to roll out.