Our weekly SRI Seminar Series welcomes Norman Sadeh, a professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), director of CMU’s Mobile Commerce Laboratory and its e-Supply Chain Management Laboratory, and co-director of the MSIT Program in Privacy Engineering. Sadeh’s research focus is mobile and pervasive computing, cybersecurity, online privacy, user-oriented machine learning, and semantic web technologies. He is also well known for his seminal work in AI planning and scheduling, agent-based supply chain management, workflow management, automated trading, and negotiation, with products based on his research deployed, commercialized by, and influencing numerous major private and government organizations.
In this talk, Sadeh will present his recent research exploring how to overcome privacy challenges associated with contemporary data collection practices, and will describe some practical solutions aimed at empowering people to regain control over their data.
Talk title:
“Privacy in the age of AI and the Internet of Things”
Abstract:
Artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are contributing to the collection and use of our data across ever more diverse scenarios. While new regulations such as the EU’s GDPR or California’s CCPA require more detailed data practice disclosures and require giving users greater control over their data, their practical impact when it comes to empowering people to regain control over their data remains limited. This is in great part because these regulations struggle to address fundamental usability challenges and continue to rely on highly unrealistic expectations about what people can and will do. Privacy policies, which no one ever reads, have become even longer; privacy choices have become more numerous and complex; and dark patterns aimed at tricking people to make decisions that are not in their best interest abound. In this presentation, I will discuss work conducted at Carnegie Mellon University to overcome these challenges, and how this research has been progressively finding its way into different practical solutions. The presentation will in particular draw on research conducted in the context of the Usable Privacy Policy Project and the Privacy Assistant Project. While AI is giving rise to new privacy challenges, this presentation aims to illustrate how AI can also help address privacy challenges.
About Norman Sadeh
Norman Sadeh is a professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He is director of CMU’s Mobile Commerce Laboratory and its e-Supply Chain Management Laboratory, co-founder of the School’s PhD Program in Societal Computing (formerly Computation, Organizations and Society) and co-director of the MSIT Program in Privacy Engineering.
He also co-founded and directs the MBA track in Technology Leadership launched jointly by the Tepper School of Business and the School of Computer Science in 2005. Over the past dozen years, Sadeh’s primary research focus has been in the area of mobile and pervasive computing, cybersecurity, online privacy, user-oriented machine learning, and semantic web technologies with a particular focus on mobile and social networking.
Sadeh is also well known for his seminal work in AI planning and scheduling, agent-based supply chain management, workflow management, automated trading and negotiation, including the original design and launch of the international supply chain trading agent competition. Products based on his research have been deployed and commercialized by organizations such as IBM, Raytheon, Mitsubishi, Boeing, Numetrix (eventually acquired by JD Edwards/PeopleSoft/Oracle), ILOG (eventually acquired by IBM), and the US Army. His privacy research has been credited with influencing the design of products at companies such as Facebook and Google as well as activities at the US Federal Trade Commission. Between 2008 and 2011, Sadeh served as founding CEO of Wombat Security Technologies, a leading provider of innovative cybersecurity training products and anti-phishing solutions originally developed as part of research with several of his colleagues at CMU. As chairman of the board and chief scientist, Sadeh remains actively involved in the company, working closely with the management team on both business and technology strategies.
Sadeh has been on the faculty at CMU since 1991. In the late nineties, he was program manager with the European Commission’s ESPRIT research program, prior to serving for two years as chief scientist of its US$700M initiative in New Methods of Work and eCommerce within the Information Society Technologies (IST) program. As such, he was responsible for shaping European research priorities in collaboration with industry and universities across Europe. These activities eventually resulted in the launch of over 200 R&D projects involving over 1,000 European organizations from industry and research. While at the Commission, Sadeh also contributed to a number of EU policy initiatives related to eCommerce, the internet, cybersecurity, privacy and entrepreneurship.
Sadeh received his PhD in computer science at CMU with a major in artificial intelligence and a minor in operations research. He holds a MS degree in computer science from the University of Southern California and a BS/MS degree in electrical engineering and applied physics from the Free University of Brussels as “Ingénieur Civil Physicien.”
Sadeh has authored over 200 scientific publications. He is also the author of m-Commerce: Technologies, Services and Business Models, a best-selling book published by Wiley in April 2002. He served as general chair of the 2003 International Conference on Electronic Commerce and as editor-in-chief of Electronic Commerce Research Applications (ECRA). He has served on the editorial board of several other journals and is currently on the board of I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society.
Sadeh is also a visiting professor at The University of Hong Kong, where he spends two weeks each year.
About the SRI Seminar Series
The SRI Seminar Series brings together the Schwartz Reisman community and beyond for a robust exchange of ideas that advance scholarship at the intersection of technology and society. Seminars are led by a leading or emerging scholar and feature extensive discussion.
Each week, a featured speaker will present for 45 minutes, followed by an open discussion. Registered attendees will be emailed a Zoom link before the event begins. The event will be recorded and posted online.
Norman Sadeh