CITP

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Many systems have been proposed for using technology to help individuals and public health officials better respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This talk will analyze the major proposed uses of information technology in the public health response to COVID-19, including aggregate reporting, contact tracing via direct proximity detection or location history matching, and creation of disease status passports. The public health value of these approaches will be considered along with their privacy and civil liberties implications. For several approaches, broad public acceptance is a prerequisite for success, making careful privacy and civil liberties protection an important contributor to public health goals.

Bio:

Edward W. Felten is the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the founding director of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. In 2011-12 he served as the first chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission. His research interests include computer security and privacy, especially relating to media and consumer products; and technology law and policy. He has published about 80 papers in the research literature and two books. His research on topics such as web security, copyright and copy protection, and electronic voting has been covered extensively in the popular press. His weblog, at freedom-to-tinker.com, is widely read for its commentary on technology, law and policy.

Professor Felten is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a fellow of the ACM. He has testified at House and Senate committee hearings on privacy, electronic voting and digital television. In 2004, Scientific American magazine named him to its list of 50 worldwide science and technology leaders.

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This virtual talk is being co-sponsored by CITP and the Department of Computer Science. It is open only to Princeton University faculty, staff, and students. 

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As our lives become increasingly digital and we produce more and more data, we are witnessing several conflicting trends. On one hand, these massive datasets are becoming more intrusive and privacy-sensitive and on the other they are becoming harder to protect. This is illustrated by the constant occurrence of data breaches in almost every industry and sector.  One of the best tools at our disposal for enforcing data privacy and security is end-to-end encryption where only the data owner hold the encryption key. While end-to end encryption is already deployed in messaging and video calling apps, its widespread adoption is severely limited because it breaks the utility of critical technologies like databases, cloud computing and machine learning.

In this talk, Seny will describe his work designing, analyzing and cryptanalyzing efficient algorithms and systems that operate on end-to-end encrypted data.  He will discuss the advances he and his collaborators have made on these problems over the last fifteen years based on ideas from a variety of fields including cryptography, algorithms, data structures, complexity theory, machine learning and databases. In addition to the technological impact of these advances, societal implications will be discussed which range from (potentially) expanding Law Enforcement’s “Going Dark” problem to enabling new policy trade-offs.

Bio:
Seny Kamara is an associate professor of computer science at Brown University, where he directs the Encrypted Systems Lab and is affiliated with the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies. Prior to joining Brown, he was a research scientist at Microsoft Research in the Cryptography Research group. At Brown, he conducts research in cryptography with a focus on problems motivated by social and policy issues.

In 2016, he was appointed by the National Academies of Sciences to study the impact of end-to-end encryption on law enforcement and intelligence agencies and in 2019 he testified to the U.S. House of Representative about the privacy and fairness implications of Big Data. He has received a Google Faculty Award and was named a Leadership Fellow by the Boston Global Forum for his work and commitment to global peace.

CITP presents a panel on elections and the role of technology during a pandemic. Professor Ed Felten will talk to experts about the challenges and risks facing the 2020 elections, and how we can design solutions and protective measures to secure our elections. Experts will address a broad range of issues including voter experience, disinformation, campaign finance and issues around scaling up vote by mail.

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The web ecosystem relies on data- and algorithms- driven innovation and monetization. In this talk, I will explore the challenges and opportunities for making these practices aligned with societal values such as privacy and fairness.

I will first describe our work in applying differential privacy for development of data-driven product features without requiring raw data collection from users. I will then present our work on systematically identifying new societal concerns posed by current implementations of targeted advertising systems such as: privacy violations, manipulation of the vulnerable, discrimination, and creation of informational filter bubbles. I will conclude by discussing how such measurements, combined with definitions and algorithms, particularly from the fields of differential privacy and algorithmic fairness, can provide a language for reasoning about trade-offs between utility, privacy, and fairness, and give solution approaches to both computer scientists and policy makers.

Bio: Aleksandra Korolova is a WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor of Computer Science at USC, where she researches algorithms and technologies that enable data-driven innovations while preserving privacy and fairness. Prior to joining USC, Aleksandra was a research scientist at Google. Aleksandra received her PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. Her PhD thesis, which focused on protecting privacy when mining and sharing user data, has been recognized by the Arthur L. Samuel Thesis Award 2011-2012, for the best PhD thesis in the Computer Science Department at Stanford. Aleksandra is also a co-winner of the 2011 PET Award for outstanding research in privacy enhancing technologies for exposing privacy violations of microtargeted advertising and a runner-up for the 2015 PET Award for RAPPOR, the first commercial deployment of differential privacy. Aleksandra's most recent work, on discrimination in ad delivery, has received CSCW Honorable Mention Award and Recognition of Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion, was cited in Facebook's Civil Rights Audit Report, and invited for a briefing for Members of the House Financial Services Committee.

This talk is being co-sponsored by CITP and the Department of Computer Science.

*Please note, this event is only open to the Princeton University community.

Lunch for talk attendees will be available at 12:00pm. 
To request accommodations for a disability, please contact Emily Lawrence, emilyl@cs.princeton.edu, 609-258-4624 at least one week prior to the event.

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Governments around the world are increasingly investing in the development and use of Artificial Intelligence and other digital technologies to govern. As most modern states spend a significant proportion of their annual budget and gross domestic product on social protection policies, it is not surprising that social protection systems are and will be at the forefront of digital innovation by governments given the political focus on cost-cutting and efficiency in many countries. Welfare bureaucracies are typically the part of the state apparatus with the most regular and extensive interaction with a significant part of the population, meaning that innovation in this area is likely to have a direct impact on the human rights of many.

There has been surprisingly little systematic research of the human rights implications of technological change in the area of social protection given the fact that human rights are both relevant and important in the context of social protection systems. This is especially (although not exclusively) the case for those who are poor, vulnerable and subject to discrimination. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Prof. Philip Alston, is preparing a thematic report on these issues to the United Nations General Assembly in the fall of 2019. As part of the consultation process for this report, the Special Rapporteur is co-organizing this conference with the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University.

To request accommodations for a disability, please contact Jean Butcher, butcher@princeton.edu, 609-258-9658 at least one week prior to the event.

Nearly 40,000 people are killed in the U.S. every year in motor vehicle crashes. Experts estimate that more than 90% of motor vehicle crashes involve human error, and the theory is that by replacing human drivers with automation, this tragic human toll will largely be eliminated. While this theory is overly simplistic, automation can potentially save tens of thousands of lives a year.

There are many lessons that can and should be applied to autonomous vehicles (AVs) that have been learned from decades of automation in aviation. Moreover, because automation on our streets and highways will be far more challenging than automation in aviation, there are several automation issues that the AV industry will face that have not already been encountered in aviation.

A large percentage of the public is already very skeptical about automation in cars. With so many lives being lost every year, it would be very unfortunate to delay the implementation of automation by having crashes that could have been avoided by paying more attention to aviation automation lessons learned in the past and by being more diligent about addressing non-aviation automation challenges.

Bio:
Christopher A. Hart is the founder of Hart Solutions LLC, a consulting firm that applies transportation safety lessons learned to improving safety in other contexts, such as autonomous vehicles and workplace safety.

Prior to that Christpoher was a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) from 2009 until January 2018, where he served as chairman, vice chairman, and member. The NTSB investigates major transportation accidents, determines probable cause, and makes recommendations to prevent recurrences.

Christopher has served in senior positions at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), he was deputy administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and he has served in a variety of legal positions.

Christopher has a law degree from Harvard Law School and Master’s and Bachelor’s Degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Lawyer-Pilots Bar Association.

To request accommodations for a disability, please contact Jean Butcher, butcher@princeton.edu, 609-258-9658 at least one week prior to the event.

Seats are limited, RSVP required.
This talk will be livestreamed on Media Central Live.

This talk is co-sponsored with the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance.

A discussion about net neutrality, 5G policy, and financial considerations with Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and Nick Feamster, Professor of Computer Science and Deputy Director of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy.

Bio:
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel believes that the future belongs to the connected. She works to promote greater opportunity, accessibility, and affordability in our communications services in order to ensure that all Americans get a fair shot at 21st century success. She values expanding opportunity through technology and finding creative solutions to our most pressing policy questions.

From fighting to protect net neutrality to ensuring access to the internet for students caught in the Homework Gap, Jessica has been a consistent champion for connectivity. She is a leader in spectrum policy, developing new ways to support wireless services from Wi-Fi to video and the internet of things. She is also a responsible for developing policies to help expand the reach of broadband to schools, libraries, hospitals, and households across the country.

Named as one of POLITICO’s 50 Politicos to Watch, Jessica brings over two decades of communications policy experience and public service to the FCC. Prior to joining the agency, she served as Senior Communications Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, under the leadership of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV and Senator Daniel Inouye. Before entering public service, Jessica practiced communications law in Washington, DC. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University and New York University School of Law.

Nick Feamster is the deputy director of CITP and a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University. Before joining the faculty at Princeton, he was a professor in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 2005, and his S.B. and M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT in 2000 and 2001, respectively. He received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the Technology Review “TR35” award, a Sloan Fellowship, and the SIGCOMM Rising Star Award for his contributions to cybersecurity, notably spam filtering. His research focuses on many aspects of computer networking and networked systems, with a focus on network operations, network security, and censorship-resistant communication systems. His research interests overlap with technology policy in the areas of censorship, broadband access networks, and network security and privacy.

No RSVP required for current Princeton faculty, staff, and students. Open to members of the public by invitation only. Please contact Jean Butcher at butcher@princeton.edu if you are interested in attending a particular lunch.

Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) was founded to harness commercial technology from start-ups for national security innovation. This is the story of how DIUx at first failed, was rebooted, and eventually succeeded in partnering with leading hardware and software startups amidst a new age of strategic competition in which technological diffusion has made the world ever flatter and more potentially dangerous.

Bio:
Christopher Kirchhoff currently leads the Schmidt Futures Challenges Project, a generational effort to harness the power of technology and science to solve the biggest challenges facing humanity. A strategist in emerging technology, Kirchhoff previously created and led the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Office, Defense Innovation Unit X, was director for strategic planning at the NSC, special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and senior advisor to Presidential Counselor John Podesta. He graduated in History & Science from Harvard College and holds a doctorate in politics from Cambridge University, where he was a Gates Scholar.

To request accommodations for a disability, please contact Jean Butcher, butcher@princeton.edu, 609-258-9658 at least one week prior to the event.

Members of the Princeton University community receive priority; members of the public are welcome if space is available.

This event will be livestreamed on Media Central Live.

As the country prepares for the mid-term elections this November, state and local election administrators are trying to understand the kinds of threats election systems face today and how best to prepare for them. CITP will present a panel discussion where our election system experts discuss existing vulnerabilities, and how election administrators can defend against these threats. Our experts will outline best practices and what we can do to secure our elections.

Moderator:
Ed Felten
Edward W. Felten is the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs and the founding director of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. In 2011-12 he served as the first chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission. His research interests include computer security and privacy, especially relating to media and consumer products; and technology law and policy. He has published about 80 papers in the research literature and two books. His research on topics such as web security, copyright and copy protection, and electronic voting has been covered extensively in the popular press. His weblog, at freedom-to-tinker.com, is widely read for its commentary on technology, law and policy.
Ed is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a fellow of the ACM. He has testified at House and Senate committee hearings on privacy, electronic voting and digital television. In 2004, Scientific American magazine named him to its list of 50 worldwide science and technology leaders.

Panelists:
Andrew Appel
Andrew Appel is Eugene Higgins Professor Computer Science, and served from 2009-2015 as Chair of the department. His research is in software verification, computer security, programming languages and compilers, and technology policy. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in physics from Princeton in 1981, and his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1985. Professor Appel has been editor in chief of ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems and is a fellow of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). He has worked on fast N-body algorithms (1980s), Standard ML of New Jersey (1990s), Foundational Proof-Carrying Code (2000s), and the Verified Software Toolchain (2010s).

Jonathan Mayer
Jonathan is an assistant professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University. Before joining the Princeton faculty, Jonathan served as the technology law and policy advisor to United States Senator Kamala Harris and as the chief technologist of the Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau. Jonathan’s research centers on the intersection of technology and law, with emphasis on national security, criminal procedure, and consumer privacy. Jonathan is both a computer scientist and a lawyer, and he holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Marian K. Schneider
As the president of Verified Voting, Marian Schneider brings a strong grounding in the legal and constitutional elements governing voting rights and elections, as well as experience in election administration at the state level. Immediately before becoming president of Verified Voting, Marian served as special advisor to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf on Election Policy. Previously, Governor Wolf appointed her as the deputy secretary for elections and administration in the Pennsylvania Department of State where she served from February 2015 until May 2017.
Marian received her J.D. from The George Washington University, where she was a member of the Law Review, and earned her B.A. degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.

To request accommodations for a disability, please contact Jean Butcher, butcher@princeton.edu, 609-258-9658 at least one week prior to the event

No RSVP required for current Princeton faculty, staff, and students. Open to members of the public by invitation only. Please contact Jean Butcher at butcher@princeton.edu if you are interested in attending a particular lunch.

To request accommodations for a disability, please contact Jean Butcher, butcher@princeton.edu, 609-258-9658 at least one week prior to the event.