# Harvard University Privacy Tools Project ![logo-long.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/styles/hwp_28_10__1920x685/public/privacytools/files/logo-long.png?itok=Um6Boaw_) The Privacy Tools Project is a broad effort to advance a multidisciplinary understanding of data privacy issues and build computational, statistical, legal, and policy tools to help address these issues in a variety of contexts. It was incubated by Harvard's [Center for Research on Computation and Society](https://crcs.seas.harvard.edu/), and continues to be a collaborative effort between several units at Harvard University (the [School of Engineering and Applied Sciences,](https://www.seas.harvard.edu/) [Institute for Quantitative Social Science,](http://iq.harvard.edu/) and [Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society](http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/)), Georgetown University [(Computer Science Department)](https://cs.georgetown.edu/), Boston University ([Computer Science Department](http://www.bu.edu/cs/)) and MIT ([Center for Research in Equitable and Open Scholarship](https://libraries.mit.edu/creos/)). Our work is funded by the [National Science Foundation](https://www.nsf.gov/), the [Sloan Foundation](http://www.sloan.org/), the [US Bureau of the Census](http://www.census.gov/), and [Google](http://research.google.com/university/relations/focused_research_awards.html). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this website are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders. ## Featured Popular Articles [More popular articles chevron\_right](/education-outreach/popular-articles) [### "Why The World Watches America's Lead On Privacy Issues" ](http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/11/13/why-the-world-watches-americas-lead-on-privacy-issues/)by Adam Tanner (November 13, 2014 - *Forbes*) [### "Nine Things You Don't Know About The Gathering Of Your Personal Data" ](http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/11/04/nine-things-you-dont-know-about-the-gathering-of-your-personal-data/)by Adam Tanner (November 4, 2014 - *Forbes*) ## Recent Publications Download 6 citations download- [BibTeX](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_agenda%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_grants%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_research1234567%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_presentations%5D&&&format=bibtex) - [EndNote X3 XML](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_agenda%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_grants%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_research1234567%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_presentations%5D&&&format=endnote8) - [EndNote 7 XML](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_agenda%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_grants%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_research1234567%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_presentations%5D&&&format=endnote7) - [Endnote tagged](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_agenda%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_grants%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_research1234567%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_presentations%5D&&&format=tagged) - [Marc](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_agenda%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_grants%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_research1234567%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_presentations%5D&&&format=marc) - [PubMedId](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_agenda%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_grants%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_research1234567%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_presentations%5D&&&format=pubmed_id) - [RIS](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=6&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_agenda%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_grants%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_research1234567%5D&taxonomy_filters%5Bfield_hwp_c_presentations%5D&&&format=ris) ### 2024 Rachel Cummings and Jayshree Sarathy. 2024. “[Centering Policy and Practice: Research Gaps Around Usable Differential Privacy](/publications/centering-policy-and-practice-research-gaps-around-usable-differential)”. In 2023 5th IEEE International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Intelligent Systems and Applications (TPS-ISA) Rachel Cummings and Jayshree Sarathy. 2024. “[Centering Policy and Practice: Research Gaps Around Usable Differential Privacy](/publications/centering-policy-and-practice-research-gaps-around-usable-differential)”. In 2023 5th IEEE International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Intelligent Systems and Applications (TPS-ISA) - add\_circle\_outline do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12103) - [ picture\_as\_pdfARXIV](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/2406.12103v1.pdf) As a mathematically rigorous framework that has amassed a rich theoretical literature, differential privacy is considered by many experts to be the gold standard for privacy-preserving data analysis. Others argue that while differential privacy is a clean... - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12103) - [ picture\_as\_pdfARXIV](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/2406.12103v1.pdf) Shurong Lin, Mark Bun, Marco Gaboardi, Eric D. Kolaczyk, and Adam Smith. 2024. “[Differentially Private Confidence Intervals for Proportions under Stratified Random Sampling](/publications/differentially-private-confidence-intervals-proportions-under-stratified)”. Electronic Journal of Statistics, 18, 1, Pp. 1455-94 Shurong Lin, Mark Bun, Marco Gaboardi, Eric D. Kolaczyk, and Adam Smith. 2024. “[Differentially Private Confidence Intervals for Proportions under Stratified Random Sampling](/publications/differentially-private-confidence-intervals-proportions-under-stratified)”. Electronic Journal of Statistics, 18, 1, Pp. 1455-94 - add\_circle\_outline do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://projecteuclid.org/journals/electronic-journal-of-statistics/volume-18/issue-1/Differentially-private-confidence-intervals-for-proportions-under-stratified-random-sampling/10.1214/24-EJS2234.full) Confidence intervals are a fundamental tool for quantifying the uncertainty of parameters of interest. With the increase of data privacy awareness, developing a private version of confidence intervals has gained growing attention from both statisticians... - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://projecteuclid.org/journals/electronic-journal-of-statistics/volume-18/issue-1/Differentially-private-confidence-intervals-for-proportions-under-stratified-random-sampling/10.1214/24-EJS2234.full) Ethan Cowan, Michael Shoemate, and Mayana Pereira. 2024. [Hands-On Differential Privacy](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/hands-on-differential-privacy/9781492097730/). O’Reilly Media Ethan Cowan, Michael Shoemate, and Mayana Pereira. 2024. [Hands-On Differential Privacy](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/hands-on-differential-privacy/9781492097730/). O’Reilly Media - add\_circle\_outline do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/hands-on-differential-privacy/9781492097730/) Many organizations today analyze and share large, sensitive datasets about individuals. Whether these datasets cover healthcare details, financial records, or exam scores, it's become more difficult for organizations to protect an individual's... - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/hands-on-differential-privacy/9781492097730/) Nico Manzanelli, Wanrong Zhang, and Salil Vadhan. 2024. “[Membership Inference Attacks and Privacy in Topic Modeling](/publications/membership-inference-attacks-and-privacy-topic-modeling)”. Accepted at Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR) 2024 Nico Manzanelli, Wanrong Zhang, and Salil Vadhan. 2024. “[Membership Inference Attacks and Privacy in Topic Modeling](/publications/membership-inference-attacks-and-privacy-topic-modeling)”. Accepted at Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR) 2024 - add\_circle\_outline do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.04451) - [ picture\_as\_pdfARXIV](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/2403.04451v2.pdf) Recent research shows that large language models are susceptible to privacy attacks that infer aspects of the training data. However, it is unclear if simpler generative models, like topic models, share similar vulnerabilities. In this work, we propose an... - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.04451) - [ picture\_as\_pdfARXIV](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/2403.04451v2.pdf) Jack Fitzsimons, James Honaker, Michael Shoemate, and Vikrant Singhal. 2024. “[Private Means and the Curious Incident of the Free Lunch](/publications/private-means-and-curious-incident-free-lunch)”. Accepted As a Poster at the Theory and Practice of Differential Privacy (TPDP) 2024 Jack Fitzsimons, James Honaker, Michael Shoemate, and Vikrant Singhal. 2024. “[Private Means and the Curious Incident of the Free Lunch](/publications/private-means-and-curious-incident-free-lunch)”. Accepted As a Poster at the Theory and Practice of Differential Privacy (TPDP) 2024 - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2408.10438) - [ picture\_as\_pdfARXIV](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/2408.10438v2.pdf) - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2408.10438) - [ picture\_as\_pdfARXIV](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/2408.10438v2.pdf) James Bailie and Jörg Drechsler. 2024. “[Whose Data Is It Anyway? Towards a Formal Treatment of Differential Privacy for Surveys](/publications/whose-data-it-anyway-towards-formal-treatment-differential-privacy-surveys)” James Bailie and Jörg Drechsler. 2024. “[Whose Data Is It Anyway? Towards a Formal Treatment of Differential Privacy for Surveys](/publications/whose-data-it-anyway-towards-formal-treatment-differential-privacy-surveys)” - add\_circle\_outline do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://iab.de/en/publications/publication/?id=14053518) - [ picture\_as\_pdff194306.pdf](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/f194306.pdf) This paper develops theory for understanding and implementing differential privacy in the context of survey statistics. By recognizing the major phases in the survey-data pipeline, we identified ten different settings of DP. These settings correspond to... - [ descriptionPublisher's Version](https://iab.de/en/publications/publication/?id=14053518) - [ picture\_as\_pdff194306.pdf](/sites/g/files/omnuum6656/files/f194306.pdf) [ More arrow\_circle\_right ](/publications) ## Latest News & Blog Posts [### Cynthia Dwork Wins National Medal of Science ](/news/2025/01/cynthia-dwork-wins-national-medal-science) January 14, 2025 [### Harvard Theory Undergrad Sílvia Casacuberta Puig wins CRA Researcher Award; International Rhodes Fellowship ](/blog/harvard-theory-undergrad-s%C3%ADlvia-casacuberta-puig-wins-cra-researcher-award) January 10, 2023 [### Swiss Data Science & AI for Public Good Seminar Series ](/blog/swiss-data-science-ai-public-good-seminar-series) January 10, 2023 [### Widespread Underestimation of Sensitivity in DP Libraries presented at PPML 2022 ](/blog/widespread-underestimation-sensitivity-dp-libraries-presented-ppml-2022) August 05, 2022 [### Differential Privacy for the 2020 Census: How Can We Make Data Both Private and Useful? ](/blog/differential-privacy-2020-census-how-can-we-make-data-both-private-and-useful) July 11, 2022 [### Contributors to the Development of Differential Privacy Receive 2021 Kanellakis Award ](/blog/contributors-development-differential-privacy-receive-kanellakis-award) May 18, 2022 [### Registration Open: OpenDP Community Meeting September 22-24 ](/blog/register-opendp-community-meeting-september-22-24) September 13, 2021 [### SAVE THE DATE: OpenDP Community Meeting 2021 ](/blog/save-date-opendp-community-meeting-2021) August 19, 2021 [ More arrow\_circle\_right ](/blog)