Cherie Givens

Chief Privacy Officer

As chief privacy officer for the N.C. Department of Information Technology, Cherie Givens is responsible for a strategic and comprehensive statewide privacy program that defines, develops, maintains and implements policies and processes that enable consistent and effective information privacy practices.

Givens is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) and an attorney with more than 20 years of experience. She joined NCDIT in December 2021 after more than a decade supporting federal privacy programs in the Washington D.C. area – first as a federal employee and then as a contractor.  

Givens brings experience in creating, assessing and maturing privacy programs. She has supported privacy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Government Publishing Office and the U.S. Department of Defense - Advana (Advancing Analytics). 

Givens is the author of “Information Privacy Fundamentals for Librarians and Information Professionals” as well as several book chapters on the topics of information privacy, cybersecurity and information governance. 

She has taught graduate level privacy and information science courses for San Jose State University, a governance course for the University of Alberta and information science courses for the University of Maryland’s iSchool. 

Givens earned a Juris Doctor from Louisiana State University and a Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies from the University of British Columbia.