The white paper “Beyond Explainability,” published by the Future of Privacy Forum and Immuta, is an attempt to sketch out how, organizationally, one can manage risk in a machine learning (ML) project. In this proposal they suggest a three-tiered oversight model composed of database administrators, data scientists (both as implementers and auditors), and domain and governance experts. These parties are divided into three groups: one that does the actual implementation, one that audits/validates the implementing team, and one that assesses what sorts of criteria the auditing team should look for. The FPF template seems appropriate for most, but not all, ML projects. When considering whether to form a process modeled after this template, practitioners should carefully consider the scope and setting of their ML operations and whether they share this template’s main concerns.
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CDT is expanding our focus on student privacy. Our goal is to provide a balanced voice and solutions-oriented resources around core issues to help educators and policymakers navigate the complex digital world. We’ll be leveraging our existing expertise on privacy & data in other sectors, including how to address bias in digital decision-making up front to prevent unintended consequences.
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CDT’s Tech Talk is a podcast where we dish on tech and Internet policy, while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. In this episode, we talk about Cloudflare’s Project Galileo and Google’s Project Shield, which both offer nonprofits and journalists free services to defend against cyber attacks. We also talk to a data scientist about her course on data ethics.
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Addressing issues around privacy, cybersecurity, and online speech, and disinformation is essential to advancement of fundamental democratic rights in the digital age. And of course, you can’t address these issues if you don’t talk about them – and do so across partisan lines and oceans. Spurring those important nonpartisan, transatlantic conversations on tech issues is why CDT, the R Street, and the Delegation of the EU to the US are hosting the Tech Summer Series.
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Written by CDT summer intern Alicia Loh
Last Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a seemingly small change to the language of its informal consumer complaints process that may have a huge practical effect on consumers. The change undermines the effectiveness of the informal complaint process, forcing consumers to use the more difficult and costly formal…
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Gautam Hans is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. He is also one of CDT’s non-resident Fellows (and a CDT alum!), engaging with our policy teams to provide valuable insight from his research. In this Q & A we get to learn more about Gautam and his current work.
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There is something unique about biometric information – literally, it’s one of a kind. Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) provides some of the strongest legal protections for biometric data in the United States, but is being challenged by Six Flags. CDT urges the Illinois Supreme Court to uphold the strong biometric privacy protections in the state’s law.
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Privacy is on a winning streak and that is good for every single internet and smartphone user, or in today’s connected world, almost everyone. With the passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act, our most populous state has taken bold action to protect the privacy rights of its residents, and now it’s time for Congress to act so all Americans enjoy these same rights.
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California’s passage of AB 375, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, reshapes the conversation about privacy law and regulation in the United States. CDT annotated key issues and concerns in the legislation, and we intend to track how these provisions are debated and potentially changed before January 1, 2020. We highlight five areas of the law that will require additional consideration from legislators, advocates and industry.
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This is the June recap issue of CDT’s monthly EU Tech Policy Brief. It highlights some of the most pressing technology and internet policy issues under debate in Europe, the U.S., and internationally, and gives CDT’s perspective on them.
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