Speaker:  Claire McKay Bowen, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, Adjunct Professor at Stonehill College

Title:  The Case for Researching Applied Privacy Enhancing Technologies: Lessons Learned and Key Takeaways from the Safe Data Technologies Project

Abstract:

Accessing data collected by federal statistical agencies is essential for public policy research and improving evidence-based decision making, such as evaluating the effectiveness of social programs, understanding demographic shifts, or addressing public health challenges. Interactive systems, such as differentially private validation servers, could be a crucial part of the data-sharing infrastructure. They would allow researchers to query targeted statistics, providing flexible, efficient access to specific insights, reducing the need for broad data releases and supporting timely, focused research. However, they have not yet been practically implemented. For instance, while substantial theoretical work has been conducted on the privacy and accuracy guarantees, prior efforts have not considered usability as an explicit goal of interactive systems. This talk will focus on the Safe Data Technologies Project, offering an overview of the project and detailing the approach to developing an interactive validation server. The aim is to bridge theory with practice by incorporating user input when implementing privacy enhancing technologies.