Diane Ackerman - Community Advisory Board Member

Diane Akerman is a public defender working in the Legal Aid Society’s Digital Forensics Unit (DFU). As an attorney in DFU, she consults with attorneys and investigators in all five boroughs on digital forensic evidence in both criminal and civil matters. Her work involves both uncovering and investigating the technologies themselves, developing litigation strategy, and advocating for policy changes. She has litigated the full array of electronic surveillance technologies employed by the NYPD and local law enforcement, including cell phone tracking, GPS, social media, ShotSpotter and facial recognition technology. Diane has presented numerous trainings and CLEs on the use of surveillance in criminal prosecutions. Prior to joining the Digital Forensics Unit, Diane was a Staff Attorney in the Queens and Manhattan trial offices and handled and tried an assortment of different cases, from misdemeanors to serious felonies.  

Diane is a founding member of Philadelphia’s Up Against the Law Legal Collective, established in 2012, that provides legal support for activists and communities in Philadelphia through legal observing, arrest tracking, litigation support and Know-Your-Rights presentations on police interactions, and trainings on digital security culture. She knows what it's like to get that email from Facebook informing you that they are about to give the federal government all your data, and to have her cell phone a mere Judge’s signature away from a Cellebrite machine. Diane is an extremely proud graduate of Temple University Beasley School of Law.