15-508: Privacy Policy, Law and Technology
Cross-listed with 08-533 and 08-733 (ISR), 19-608 (EPP), and 95-818 (MSISPM)
This mixed-undergraduate and graduate-level course reviews the interactions among policy, law and technology on personal privacy. We enroll students from computer science, engineering and public policy. This course was originally developed by Lorrie Cranor original course offering.
For Spring 2012, I redesigned 15-508 to highlight "Privacy as Controversy," which engages students to appreciate the conflicting viewpoints across three critical and distinct perspectives: the individual’s perspective (how students experience privacy, first-hand), the corporate perspective (how businesses experience privacy in a market- and profit-driven world), and the government perspective (how national institutions experience privacy, including programs of national scale: electronic voting, electronic healthcare records, national identity systems, etc.) This redesign includes new student-led, Karl Popper-style debates, in which students perform twice as debaters and twice as judges on resolutions that students both may personally support and oppose. The debates teach students how to identify, prioritize and organize facts into structured arguments and how to think critically in both written and verbal prose.
Required Textbook: Daniel J. Solove, Paul M. Schwartz (2011). Privacy, Information, and Technology, Third Edition. Aspen Publishers. Find it on Amazon.com
No. | Course Topics | Reading |
01 | Introduction to the Course
- Course requirements
- Syllabus
- Early history
- Overview of course topics
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02 | Privacy Primer
- Warren and Brandeis
- Alan Westin
- Solove's Taxonomy
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- Privacy, Information, and Technology, 1C Introduction: Perspectives on Privacy, pp. 39-76
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03 | Privacy, Culture and Harms
- What is privacy?
- Risk and morality
- Secrecy and trust
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Optional:
| 04 | Course Debate Introduction
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HW1 Due: Wallet Collage
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05 | Economics of Privacy
- Privacy risks
- Decision-making
- Coping strategies
Introduction to Course Debates
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- Acquisti, Grossklags. "Privacy and rationality in individual decision making," IEEE S&P 3(1): 24-30, 2005
- Poindexter, Earp, Baumer. "An experimental economics approach toward quantifying online privacy choices," 8(5): 363-374, 2006
- Acquisti, Gross. "Imagined Communities: Awareness, Information Sharing, and Privacy on the Facebook," Workshop on Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, 2006
Optional reading:
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06 | Online Privacy Mechanics
- Web browsers, cookies
- SPAM, phishing
- Malware, spyware
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- Privacy, Information, and Technology, 4A, Sections 2. Use and Disclosure of Financial Information, pp. 405-411, and 3. Identity Theft, pp. 411-425
- Privacy, Information, and Technology, 4D First Amendment Limitations, pp. 526-552.
- Adil Alsaid and David Martin. "Detecting web bugs with Bugnosis," Privacy Enhancing Technologies Workshop, 2002
Optional Reading:
- Hong, "The State of Phishing Attacks," Comm. ACM, 55(1): 74-81, 2012
- Eckersley, "How Unique Is Your Web Browser?" Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, 2010.
- Jagatic, Johnson, Jakobsson, Menczer, "Social Phishing," Comm. ACM, 50(10), 94-100, 2007
- Kristol, "HTTP Cookies," ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, 1(2): 151-198, 2001.
HW #2 Due: Find a Web Bug
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07 | Family, Parents and Teenagers
- Children's privacy
- Teenager perceptions
- Parental interventions
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- Boyd, Marwick. "Social privacy in networked publics," In Proc. A Decade in Internet Time, Univ. Oxford, 2011.
- Yardi, Bruckman. "Social and technical challenges in parenting teens' social media use," CHI, pp. 3237-3246, 2011.
- FTC's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), Pub.L. 105-277, 112 Stat. 2581-728, 2008.
Optional reading:
- Czeskis et al. "Parenting from the Pocket," 6th Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security, 2010.
- Rode. Digital Parenting, 23rd British HCI, pp. 244-251, 2009
- Parts 3-5 in Lenhart, Madden, Smith, Purcell, Zickuhr, Rainie. "Teens, kindness, and cruelty on social network sites," PEW Internet & American Life Project, 2009.
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08 | Privacy in the Workplace
Guest Lecture: Michael Shamos
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HW #3 Due: Workplace Privacy
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09 | Location Privacy
- Web cams, CCTV, Street View
- RFID
- Mobile phones
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- Mancini et al. "In the Best Families: Tracking and Relationships," CHI, pp. 2419-2428, 2011.
- Teixeira, Jung, Savvides, "Tasking networked CCTV cameras and mobile phones to identify and localize multiple people," Ubiquitous Computing, pp. 213-222, 2010.
- Garfinkel, Juels, Pappu. "RFID Privacy," IEEE S&P, 3(3): 34-43, 2005
Optional Reading:
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10 | Debate 1: Location privacy
| Topic Paper #1 Due
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11 | Identity and Anonymity
- What is digital identity?
- Credentials
- Access controls
- Anonymity Tools
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- Stephen T. Kent and Lynette I. Millett, Editors. Who Goes There? Authentication Through the Lens of Privacy, National Academy of Sciences, 2003, Chapters 1 and 2, pp. 16-54.
- Chaum. "Security without identification," Comm. ACM, 28(10): 1030-1044, 1985.
- Angwin, Valentino-Devries, "Race is on to ‘fingerprint' phones, PCs," Wall Street Journal, Nov. 30, 2010
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12 | Data linking, profiling, mining
- Behavioral Advertising
- Credit reports
- Medical records
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- Ohm, "Broken Promises of Privacy," UCLA L. Rev. 57: 1701-1777, 2010
- Sweeney, "k-Anonymity," Int'l J. Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-based Systems, 10(5): 557-570, 2002
- Barbaro, Zeller. "A face is exposed for AOL searcher No. 4417749," New York Times, Aug. 9, 2006
- Duhigg. "What does your credit-card company know about you?" The Times Magazine, May 17, 2009
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13 | Guest Lecture: Jason Hong
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14 | Field Trip: Biometric Lab
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HW #4 Due: Data Breach Analysis
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15 | Incidents and Enforcement
- Data breaches
- Remediation
- Enforcement models
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- Privacy, Information, and Technology, 4C Privacy, Data Security, pp. 506-526.
- Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs), U.S. Federal Trade Comission
- Otto, Anton. "The ChoicePoint Dilemma," IEEE S&P, 5(5): 15-23, 2007
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16 | Debate 2: Consumer privacy
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Topic Paper #2 Due
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17 | Spring break -- No class
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18 | Spring break -- No class
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19 | Industry Self-regulation
- Privacy principles
- Privacy seals and policies
- Privacy as a Profession
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- Privacy, Information, and Technology, 4B Privacy, Business Records, and Financial Information: Regulating Business Records and Databases, pp. 197-249.
- Jensen, Potts. "Privacy policies as decision-making tools," Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 471-478, 2004.
Optional reading:
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20 | Technology Critique Presentations #1
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Technology Critiques Due
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21 | Technology Critique Presentations #2
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22 | Technology Critique Presentations #3
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23 | Engineering Privacy
- Guidelines
- P3P, APPEL, EPAL, XACML
- DNT
- OpenAuth
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- Microsoft's Privacy Guidelines for Developing Software Products and Services, v3, Sep. 29, 2010
- Thurm, Kane. "Your apps are watching you," Wall Street Journal, Dec. 17, 2010
- Cranor, Egelman, Sheng, McDonald, Chowdhury. "P3P deployment on websites," E-commerce Research and Applications, 7(3): 274-293, 2008
Optional:
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24 | Debate 3: Self-regulation
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Topic Paper #3 Due
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25 | Trans-border data flows
- Safe Harbor
- OECD, APEC frameworks
- Out-sourcing
- Cloud computing
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26 | National and provincial laws
- U.S. versus E.U.
- U.S. Rulemaking process
- Global law survey
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27 | National Programs
- National identification
- Census
- Smart-grids and energy
- Medical records
- Research ethics
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28 | Government surveillance
- Wiretapping
- Profiling
- 4th amendment
- CALEA, Pen-Trap, etc.
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Optional Reading:
HW #5 Due: SORNs, PIAs, Data linking
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29 | Privacy and democracy
- Freedom of speech
- Electronic voting
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30 | Debate 4: Law enforcement
| Topic Paper #4 Due
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31 | Theories of Privacy
- Individuality Theories
- Sociality theories
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- Warren & Brandeis. "The Right to Privacy," Harv. L. Rev. 4(5), 1890
- Nissenbaum. "Privacy as Contextual Integrity," Wash. L. Rev. 79(1): 119-158, 2004
- Solove. "A Taxonomy of Privacy," U. Penn. L. Rev. 154(3): 477-560, 2006
- Westin. Privacy and Freedom, Bodley Head Ltd., 1970
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32 | Course Reflection and Summary
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