Education and Outreach

The Privacy Tools project makes considerable efforts to education both the public and greater academic community across disciplines to communicate the disclosure risks associated with research data and the ongoing efforts to successful management of confidential information. As the research in this project informs the development of educational materials in our existing and new courses, we will continue efforts to reach a wide range of audiences beyond Harvard. We primarily target education and outreach through courses and workshops, materials for public dissemination, mentorship, and policy work.

Courses

The investigators teach a number of courses (Course link/open course material) related to data privacy. The courses are taught across three departments (Computer Science, Government, and Law) at both the undergraduate and graduate level with the involvement of visiting scholars, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students.

(Can I call these workshops? Micah’s day long “course” and Salil’s Barbados course/workshop -> COURSES PAGE)

The existing curricula incorporates new ideas developed through this grant on how and why the information all around us can be made trustworthy and used for personal and public benefit. Open course materials(New page developed) include recorded lectures, readings, assignments, and lecture notes.

Collaborators Cynthia Dwork and Aaron Roth published their monograph "The Algorithmic Foundations of Differential Privacy," as part of the series Foundations and Trends in Theoretical Computer Science.  The Privacy Tools project provided extensive input to this publication that will serve as an important resource for students and researchers.   -> COURSE MATERIALS PAGE.

Public seminars.

A number of project members have also presented privacy issues at recorded, public seminars hosted by Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society (CRCS) throughout the academic year. These seminars hope to develop and discuss new computer science theories and technology in the public interest, informed by a deep knowledge of the societal issues at stake.

Workshops and Symposia

The Privacy Tools project both hosted and participated in a variety of interdisciplinary workshops focused on privacy theory, policy and practice. The target population for these workshops ranges between leading complexity theorists, researchers from a variety of disciplines, and the public (is there a public workshop? Review Y2 Report).

(link should include a page for workshops: papers, materials, etc).

The Privacy Tools project will be hosting a symposium for the general public on privacy for as part of the highly attended Harvard IACS Symposium on January 23rd, 2015. PI Salil Vadhan and collaborator Cynthia Dwork will run a symposium on differential privacy, aimed at the scientific public, policy makers, and the press at the 2015 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting February 12th to16th 2015. 

Popular Press

Adam Tanner, a Visiting Fellow at Harvard's Department of Government working closely with Co-PI Latanya Sweeney and the Data Privacy Lab at Harvard's IQSS, has published over 73 articles related to data privacy in the highly circulated, American business magazine Forbes. (edit the links here)

For a list of publications listed above, please click here.

Mentorship.

We have invested substantial effort in training the next generation of researchers to take a broad, multidisciplinary perspective on data privacy issues through mentorship. Undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows have been fully integrated into our research efforts. Each summer we host a number of undergraduate students and law students from various universities across the country who participate in the research project. Mentorship continues during the academic year through our multidisciplinary community including undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, senior researchers, visiting scholars, and faculty.

To access student research, please click here. (Link to page with student research and publications. Many posters are about publications. Link back to all researchers. )

We have made an effort to recruit women and under-represented minorities at all levels: of our 64 project participants,__ are women and 6(?) are underrepresented minorities.

Policy Work

The Privacy Tools project also submitted comments (link) to federal agencies in big data and privacy related proceedings, including an overview of privacy aware models that are used to share data containing sensitive personal information and recommending that future data releases be informed by a sophisticated analysis of reidentification risks, information sensitivity, potential harms, mitigation techniques, and legal remedies.

Additionally, Co-PI Latanya Sweeney joined the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as Chief Technologist in January 2014, advising the agency on evolving technology and policy issues and participating in FTC enforcement and policy functions. The FTC also allows CoPI Sweeney to blog (Link) about technology issues related to the FTC (Tech@FTC) and many of these blog posts have ignited research in computer science and social science.