6.962 - Privacy: Modern and post-modern privacy models for the Information Age: Graduate Directed Reading Seminar

6.962 - Privacy: Modern and post-modern privacy models for the Information Age:
Graduate Directed Reading Seminar

Overview

6.962 - Privacy: Modern and post-modern privacy models for the Information Age: This seminar will explore the sociological, technical and legal background of modern information privacy. Through leading primary sources in modern privacy theory, we will examine how those privacy models have worked to date. With this understanding of modern privacy, we will ask whether current ideas about privacy provide the necessary guidance to address privacy questions posed by rapidly expanding information age technologies. The seminar will read roughly one book-length work per week (or equivalent) and students will write several seminar papers.

The reading list will be adjusted to address issues that arise in the course of discussion.
Permission of the instructor required.

Logistics

Thursdays 2:30 - 4:00pm
38-166

Instructor

Daniel J. Weitzner: djweitzner@csail.mit.edu

Syllabus

I. Modern Privacy - a starting point
Week 1 - 7 Feb 2013	A. Westin, Privacy and Freedom (1966), ch. 1-4.
Week 2 - 14 Feb 2013 (meeting on 19 Feb)	Westin, chapters 7, 8, 11-14 W.B. Gallie, Essentially Contested Concepts (1956)
Week 3 - 21 Feb 2013	Privacy Protection Measures in the Ten Years Since Privacy and Freedom Report of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data Systems. (1973) Summary and Recommendations Personal Privacy in an Information Society: The Report of Privacy Protection Study Commission (1977) Chapter 1, Epilogue Optional: Ch 2: Consumer Credit Ch 5: Insurance Ch 7: Recordkeeping in the Medical Relationship Ch 9: Government Access to Records and Private Papers
II. Foundations Theory of Community, Individual Identity and Society
Week 4 - 28 Feb 2013	Read: G. Orwell, 1984 Writing Assignment #1: "Big Brother's Privacy Problem." Write a 1500-2000 word paper analyzing what 1984 teaches us about the threats that invasion of privacy poses to democracy and human dignity. Consider the following questions: What specific privacy intrusions did Big Brother employ in creating and governing Oceana? If there were enforceable rules similar to those proposed by Westin, the 1973 report or the 1977 report, could Ingsoc have gained power and created Oceana? Explain why or why not with respect to specific rules recommended in those reports.
Week 5 - 7 March 2013	M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish especially Part One, Part Two, Part Three (chapter 3). (this is not easy reading - don't leave for the night before class)
Week 6 - 14 March 2013	David Brin, Transparent Society
III. Case studies – privacy, discrimination and truth
Week 7 - 21 March 2013	Exercises is ground truth and civil liberties DNA evidence in court – The Innocence Project read the fact sheets comment on District Attorney v. Osborne, 129 S.Ct. 2308 (2009) Civil Liberties critique American Constitution Society, A New Era of DNA Collections: At What Cost to Civil Liberties? T. Simoncelli (ACLU), Dangerous Excursions: The Case Against Expanding Forensic DNA Databases to Innocent Persons Genomic research and health care Lunshof et al, Personal Genomes in Progress Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience (Vol 12, no 2) Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act summary of GINA IBM's privacy policy on genetic information
Week 8 - 4 April 2013	Political activity: anonymity and transparency NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963) McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995) Students seeking credits (and others on a voluntary basis) should come with written proposals for student-led seminar topics (weeks 12-14).
IV. Privacy in US Common Law and EU Civil Law
Week 9 - 11 April 2013	Prosser on Privacy see Prosser at 50 Spiros Simitis, Reviewing Privacy in an Information Society, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 135, No. 3 (Mar., 1987), pp. 707-746 Ruth Gavison, Privacy and the Limits of the Law. Yale Law Journal 89: 421-471
V. Dark Side/Light side views
Week 10 - 18 April 2013	D. Mulligan and K. Bamberger, Privacy on the Books and on the Ground Jeff Rosen, The Unwanted Gaze
Week 11 - 25 April 2013	Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Delete:The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age
IV. Student-led discussions
Week 12 - 6 May (Monday meeting by Hangout at 11am - 12:30pm)	Privacy and Plausible Deniability In re Boucher How Rubberhose file system works Warden v. Hayden United States v. Doe United States v. Fricosu
Week 13: 9 May	Neuroscience and Privacy (Anna) A. How do recent developments in neuroscience, particularly in neuroimaging, impact longstanding questions of privacy? How have such technologies been viewed by the courts? 1. Current overview of the main ethical, legal and social issues in neuroscience (read pgs 571-580; rest is optional): Farah, M. J. (2012). Neuroethics: The ethical, legal, and societal impact of neuroscience. Annual review of psychology, 63, 571-591. (pdf) 2. Discussion of “neuroprivacy” and its legal implications: Committee on Science and Law, Association of the Bar of the City of New York (2005). Are your thoughts your own? “Neuroprivacy” and the legal implications of brain imaging. 3. Skim the next two papers: - A skeptical look at brain imaging and privacy: Farah, M. J., Smith, M. E., Gawuga, C., Lindsell, D., & Foster, D. (2009). Brain imaging and brain privacy: a realistic concern?. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(1), 119-127. (pdf) - A recent paper on brain scans and criminal re-offending (March 2013): For summary, see Wired article or Nature News article. Main article is optional: Aharoni, E., Vincent, G. M., Harenski, C. L., Calhoun, V. D., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Gazzaniga, M. S., & Kiehl, K. A. (2013). Neuroprediction of future rearrest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. B. Do brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) present their own set of ethical and privacy issues? Do BMIs (and more broadly, other commercial neuroscience-related technologies) present a distinct set of security concerns? 1. Background (all optional; but they’re short and I highly recommend skimming these pieces to get an overview of the future potential of BMIs, as well as the current state of BMI clinical research and commercial applications) - A future world with BMIs? A speculative overview Nicolelis, M. A. (2011). Mind out of Body. Scientific American, 304(2), 80-83. (pdf) - Clinical Uses (example of current research) “Mind-Controlled Robotic Arm Shows Promise.” Nature News, May 16, 2012. - Commercial Applications (overview) “Mind Control Goes Mainstream” Forbes, March 3, 2009. Supplementary: Tan Le’s July 2010 TED talk and demo of Emotiv – skip through to see a demo of a commercial BMI. 2. Overview of ethical issues in brain-machine interfaces (skim both papers): - Ethical issues in brain-machine interfaces – overview article Nijboer, F., Clausen, J., Allison, B. Z., & Haselager, P. (2011). The Asilomar survey: stakeholders’ opinions on ethical issues related to brain-computer interfacing. Neuroethics, 1-38. (pdf) - Vlek, R. J., Steines, D., Szibbo, D., Kübler, A., Schneider, M. J., Haselager, P., & Nijboer, F. (2012). Ethical Issues in Brain–Computer Interface Research, Development, and Dissemination. Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy, 36(2), 94. (pdf) 3. “Hacking” into a commercial BMI - Read the paper below, or watch the video of the talk: Martinovic, I., Davies, D., Frank, M., Perito, D., Ros, T., & Song, D. (2012, August). On the feasibility of side-channel attacks with brain-computer interfaces. In 21st USENIX Security Symp. (pdf) C. Is Sententia’s notion of “cognitive liberty” a useful theoretical framework for discussing neuroethics? How does it relate to issues of privacy, autonomy and freedom that we have previously discussed? 1. Sententia, W. (2004). Neuroethical considerations: cognitive liberty and converging technologies for improving human cognition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1013(1), 221-228.
Week 14: 16 May	Contextual integrity (Fuming) Helen Nissenbaum, Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010) (if you don't have access to this book, read (2)) Privacy as Contextual Integrity (Washington Law Review, Vol. 79, No. 1, 2004. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=534622) Consumer privacy bill of rights (p.15 - p.18) Daniel J. Solove, Privacy Self-Management and the Consent Paradox. Helen Nissenbaum, A Contextual Approach to Privacy Online. Fuming Shih, No Surprises: Quantifying Intrusiveness of Smartphone Applications By Detecting Objective Context Deviations (working draft)