Alison Howard is an assistant general counsel in the privacy legal team at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington, and leads Microsoft's global Office of Data Protection.  She assists with Microsoft's efforts around the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and global regulations, engaging with data protection authorities and supporting Microsoft's data protection commitments to customers.

Before joining Microsoft in 2005, she was an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Seattle.  She was a journalist at newspapers in California and Idaho before becoming a lawyer.

She received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, her M.A. in international journalism from the University of Southern California and her B.A. in journalism from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.  She has CIPP/E and CIPP/US certifications.