Alvaro Bedoya is a Senior Advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project. He was appointed by President Joe Biden to serve as a Commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission in May 2022 and served in that role until his resignation in June 2025. At the FTC, Commissioner Bedoya focused on how antitrust law could do more to protect workers and labor unions, and warned against rapidly advancing workplace surveillance technology. He took a special interest in the challenges facing small-town grocers and pharmacists, and helped coordinate the Commission’s revival of the Robinson-Patman Act, a long-dormant antitrust law that was passed to give small sellers a level playing field against retail giants.
Before his confirmation, Bedoya served as chief counsel to Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, and helped him establish the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Privacy upon its creation in 2010. After the Senate, he founded the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, which conducted in-depth research into face surveillance and the surveillance of religious and ethnic minorities. His essay on the subject, “Privacy as Civil Right,” is featured in textbooks used in U.S. law schools.
A naturalized citizen born in Peru and raised in upstate New York, Bedoya also co-founded the Esperanza Education Fund, a college scholarship for immigrant students that is blind to immigration status, and that has awarded over $1 million in scholarships since 2009. He also served on the boards of CASA and The Hispanic Bar Association of Washington, D.C.
His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, and lives with his wife and children in Rockville, Maryland.