Shanna Holako

Shanna Holako has experience in compliance and risk counseling, with a focus on location data. She works closely with regional and local counsel and collaborates with a wide range of professionals, from engineers to product designers. 

Shanna has worked on secondments with two large technology companies, Meta and Dropbox. While working in-house for these firm clients, she gained experience in leadership, communications, and client services. 

During her secondment at Meta, Shanna served as location product counsel working across the Meta family of apps, focusing on privacy considerations related to location use, collection, sharing, and user experience. She became knowledgeable on issues related to location data, as she was the primary legal professional in a nearly year-long deprecation that saved Meta millions of dollars in storage and resources. The outcome was a win for user privacy and a quick response to the changing regulatory landscape. 

During her secondment at Dropbox, Shanna advised on legal obligations and rights in responding to government entities from around the world. She counseled and led the operations team on responding to governmental requests, civil requests, and matters regarding the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act. She assisted in building international legal compliance infrastructure relating to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Shanna also helped manage and oversee the rollout of a technical mechanism designed to make data productions to law enforcement more efficient. 

Shanna helps ensure her clients' strategies align with current privacy and security best practices. She has also counseled clients on the California Consumer Privacy Act and the GDPR, as well as helped communications service providers respond to requests for surveillance and disclosure of information in accordance with the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act. She analyzed domestic and international legal process and requests, represented providers in interactions with government and private counsel, developed compliance manuals and materials, and also counseled and trained in-house lawyers and employees on compliance. 

Maintaining an active pro bono practice, Shanna helped the Transgender Law Center with responding to letters from incarcerated transgender people. She drafted a human trafficking vacatur relief petition for an individual in hopes of helping invite opportunities to a new life, job, and housing. Shanna has also assisted in representing a prosecution witness of a domestic violence dispute and prevented the defendant from obtaining sensitive and invasive records. She has represented clients, including Queens College Hillel and SAGE, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ elders, in data breach cases and has counseled small businesses on developing their privacy policies and terms of services. She has participated in the Bet Tzedek Self-Help Legal Conservatorship Clinic.