15-394 Special Topic: Privacy and Anonymity in Data

Units: 12.0 Department: Computer Science Prerequisites: 15-211 Cross-listed: 17-802 Related URLs: http://www.csd.cs.cmu.edu This course introduces students to the identifiability of data, record linkage, data profiling, data fusion, data anonymity and privacy protection. This knowledge is timely because society is experiencing exponential growth in the number and variety of person-specific data collected and shared. Students learn to identify and control inferences that can be drawn from such data. In the first part of this course, students learn to be data detectives and exploit information that is publicly available in order to build sensitive profiles and identify individuals from seemingly anonymous data. In the second part of the course, students learn new privacy protocols and anonymity protection schemes and then assume the responsibility of producing public-use files for data holders. Students then attempt to compromise each other's releases. Examples are drawn from criminal data, financial data, web use, declassification efforts, medical information, and bio-terrorism and counter-terrorism efforts. The course ends with students attempting to bridge the technical challenges and solutions with effective policies (examinations include medical privacy legislation, HIPAA, video surveillance laws and bio-terrorism and counter-terrorism laws). Related topics are drawn from: data mining, information retrieval, web technology, computer security, cryptography, relational databases, statistics and political philosophy.

Popularity index Rank for this semester: #0 Rank in this department: #0   Students also scheduled 15-451 Algorithm Design and Analysis 33-112 Physics II for Science Students 15-397 Special Topic: Web Application Deve... 15-415 Database Applications 21-484 Graph Theory 85-392 Human Expertise 15-213 Introduction to Computer Systems 80-210 Logic and Proofs 36-217 Probability Theory and Random Proce... 67-373 Software Development Project

Spring 2005 times

No sections available for semester Spring 2005.