Foundations of
Privacy
18734/08-604
Instructor: Anupam
Datta
Office hours: Monday 2-3PM EDT (in CIC
2118)
TA: Amit Datta
Office hours: Friday 1:30-2:30PM EDT
(in CIC 2214)
Course hours: Mon,Wed: 04:30-06:20PM EDT (01:30-3:20PM PDT)
Recitation hours: Fri:
12:30-01:20PM
EDT (09:30AM-12:20PM PDT)
Location:
HH1107
(Pittsburgh), B23 211 (SV)
Course Description:
Privacy is a significant concern
in modern society. Individuals share personal information with many different
organizations - healthcare, financial and educational institutions, the census
bureau, Web services providers and online social networks - often in electronic
form. Privacy violations occur when such personal information is
inappropriately collected, shared or used. We will study privacy in a few
settings where rigorous definitions and enforcement mechanisms are being
developed - statistical disclosure limitation (as may be used by the census
bureau in releasing statistics), semantics and logical specification of privacy
policies that constrain information flow and use (e.g., by privacy regulations
such as the HIPAA Privacy Rule and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), principled
audit and accountability mechanisms for enforcing privacy policies, anonymous
communication protocols - and other settings in which privacy concerns have
prompted much research, such as in social networks, location privacy and Web
privacy (in particular, online tracking & targeted advertising).
Prerequisite: An undergraduate course equivalent to 15-251 or permission of instructor.
Last year’s course page: Fall 2013
Grading:
·
Homework: 60%
·
Reading and class participation: 10%
·
Project: 30%