Mubarak Raji wins IAPP Westin Scholar Award for excellence in privacy

The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), a policy-neutral and not-for-profit association, has named Mubarak Raji a 2025–2026 Westin Scholar.

Raji’s selection represents a timely endorsement of a scholar-practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of law, technology, and African regional experience. He is one of the few Nigerians and Africans to receive the international recognition. The award includes a cash prize, two years of IAPP membership with access to three leading privacy certification pathway exams (CIPP, CIPM, and CIPT), unlimited online training for those exams, and related resources. These benefits aim to accelerate professional development in a field where shared standards and credentials are increasingly vital.

Raji, a doctoral researcher at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (iSchool at Illinois), holds an LLM from the University of Illinois College of Law, a BL from the Nigerian Law School in Lagos, and an LLB (JD equivalent) from Bayero University Kano. His journey into privacy began in 2019, when he volunteered as pro bono counsel in a politically sensitive case involving the unauthorized use of images. The experience exposed him to the real-world harms of personal data misuse. That same year, he advised clients on high-stakes data protection issues arising from information sharing between Nigeria’s banking and telecommunications sectors. These early engagements underscored the national importance of privacy and shaped his focus on practical, policy-relevant research.

The Westin Scholar Award is named after Dr. Alan Westin, whose groundbreaking book Privacy and Freedom (1967) helped establish privacy as a serious field of scholarly and policy inquiry. Westin’s emphasis on balancing individual rights with societal and technological demands, along with his focus on empirical study, laid the foundations of modern privacy thought. The IAPP’s Westin programs and research library continue this legacy by supporting practical scholarship and training for the next generation of privacy leaders.

Raji’s research examines enforcement mechanisms in African data protection laws, deepfakes and consent, the effectiveness of African privacy regimes in the era of pervasive machine learning, and the representation of the Global Majority in international AI governance. More recently, he has focused on the governance of agentic AI—autonomous systems whose decisions can carry broad societal consequences, areas where legal accountability often struggles to keep pace with technological advances.

The iSchool at Illinois highlighted the award’s broader significance in its announcement. Associate Professor Masooda Bashir, who helped bring the Westin Scholar program to the university, described it as a significant milestone. She noted that it marks the second time a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign student has received the recognition, praising Raji’s remarkable contributions while underscoring the school’s growing role in advancing responsible, ethical, and forward-looking data practices.

Raji plans to use the scholarship for both professional and civic goals: completing industry-focused privacy training, earning internationally recognized certifications, advancing his research on AI governance, integrating privacy more deeply into academic curricula, and expanding his professional networks. These objectives address a critical need for experts who can translate algorithmic risks into enforceable legal arguments and design governance frameworks attuned to local realities rather than imported wholesale from other jurisdictions.

Through its certification, training, and fellowship programs, the IAPP helps set global norms and channels talent into advisory, regulatory, and industry roles where critical data governance decisions are made. Raji’s entry into this ecosystem brings an African-informed perspective to international debates at a pivotal time, as AI policy choices will determine whose rights are protected and whose harms are addressed.

Raji’s trajectory underscores that effective privacy governance demands hybrid practitioners—individuals who combine legal training, technical understanding, and lived regional insight. As AI continues to accelerate, such voices will be essential to ensuring governance is both accountable and equitable.