Privacy and Data Collection

The rights to privacy and data protection are about the flow of personal information. Our approach to privacy research spans commercial, governmental, and organizational surveillance. Beyond research about law and policy, we engage with topics from security and privacy engineering, as well as foundational theory. Our work covers both United States and European legal systems, often drawing comparisons between them and other jurisdictions.

Surveillance

Commercial

What are private companies doing with the data trails individuals leave behind their activities online? When is behavioral advertising a beneficial form of personalization and when is it privacy-invasive or discriminatory? How should law and policy be designed to serve society's needs and values?

Government

What information are police and national security officials legally permitted to collect and about whom? What information should they be able to collect as a matter of ethics and policy? How can and should government surveillance be regulated in a democratic society?

Social and Organizational

Surveillance has become an everyday phenomenon — within workplaces, schools, families, and friendships. How do interpersonal and organizational monitoring change social relationships and power dynamics? How do they interact with social values like risk, discretion, and trust?

Security, Privacy, and Engineering

How are privacy and security matters addressed using technology? What do computer scientists, practitioners, and policy makers see as the role that technology can play in addressing matters of privacy and security? How do these interact with policy concepts like "regulation by design"? What are ways to organize the delegation of security and privacy matters to engineers in an accountable and responsible manner?

Theory

Privacy laws are underpinned by several, often conflicting, theories. Is privacy an end in itself, or only a means towards safeguarding other values? What functions does privacy serve for the individual and societally? How should conceptual issues be settled when advancing new laws?