Workshop on Defining Holistic Private Data Science for Practice

January 8-10, 2025

UC San Diego

This workshop will focus on identifying viable paths towards reducing the gap between theoretical developments and practical applications of privacy-preserving tools in data science. Despite extensive research into privacy-preserving tools, such as differential privacy and multiparty computation, the translation of these tools into practice and real-world use remains limited.

Over the course of the three days, through a mix of presentations and targeted discussion groups, participants will delve into solutions for how novel privacy-enhancing technologies can be effectively translated to applications in real-world scenarios. We partition the problem space into four themes throughout the workshop. These themes are (1) understanding privacy needs in a range of practical contexts, (2) characterising the various costs of imposing privacy constraints on data science operations, (3) designing methods/benchmarks for evaluating the effectiveness of privacy-preserving solutions, and (4) developing strategies for communicating the above to key stakeholders.

Participants: Sebastian Benthall (New York University), Mark Bun (Boston University), Clément Canonne (University of Sydney), Kamalika Chaudhuri (Meta), Aloni Cohen (University of Chicago), Shaanan Cohney (University of Melbourne), Rachel Cummings (Columbia University), Yaw Etse (Capital One), Talia Gillis (Columbia University), Mahdi Haghifam (Northeastern University), Palak Jain (Boston University), Bailey Kacsmar (University of Alberta), Gabriel Kaptchuk (University of Maryland), Gautam Kamath (University of Waterloo), Oliver Kosut (Arizona State University), Benjamin Laufer (Cornell Tech), Tamalika Mukherjee (Columbia University), Priyanka Nanayakkara (Harvard University), Simon Oya (University of British Columbia), Saeyoung Rho (Columbia University), Amartya Sanyal (University of Copenhagen), Jayshree Sarathy (Northeastern University), Jeremy Seeman (Urban Institute), Kris Shrishak (Irish Council for Civil Liberties), Satchit Sivakumar (Boston University), Adam Smith (Boston University), Stephanie Straus (Georgetown University), Jon Ullman (Northeastern University), Sergei Vassilvitskii (Google), Yu-Xiang Wang (UCSD), Lydia Zakynthinou (University of California, Berkeley), Wanrong Zhang (Harvard University)

Program

9:00 - 9:15 Breakfast and Check-ins
9:15 - 9:30 Opening Remarks
Topic 1: Defining appropriate technical privacy notions for practice
9:30 - 9:40 Introduction to Topic 1 Rachel Cummings
9:40 - 10:00 "Excuse me, you have something stuck in your teeth” (Why leaders don’t yet care about our research) Shaanan Cohney
10:00 - 10:20 Practical Considerations for Differential Privacy Sergei Vassilvitskii
10:20 - 10:40 Privacy for Social Network Data: Definitions and Algorithmic Techniques Adam Smith
10:40 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 11:50 Breakout discussion session
11:50 - 12:20 Shareback Session
12:20 - 1:30 Lunch (on your own)
Topic 2: Classifying the types and size of costs associated with private data analysis
1:30 - 1:40 Introduction to Topic 2 Amartya Sanyal
1:40 - 2:00 The Utility Constraints with Private Data Analysis Wanrong Zhang
2:00 - 2:20 Trading-off Privacy, Robustness, Accuracy, and Computation in Statistical Estimation Lydia Zakynthinou
2:00 - 2:20 Costs of privacy analysis in the continual release model Tamalika Mukherjee
2:40 - 3:30 Breakout session
3:30 - 4:00 Shareback Session
Topic 3: Defining and designing metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of private data analysis
9:30 - 9:40 Introduction to Topic 3 Clément L. Canonne
9:40 - 10:00 Demographic Coherence: Designing A Privacy Notion With Ergonomics In Mind Gabriel Kaptchuk
10:00 - 10:20 Auditing Differentially Private Algorithms Jon Ullman
10:20 - 10:40 Measuring Memorization in Representation Learning Models Kamalika Chaudhuri
10:40 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 11:50 Breakout session
11:50 - 12:20 Shareback Session
12:20 - 1:30 Lunch (on your own)
1:30 - Social event
Topic 4: Identifying adaptable communication practices to all relevant stakeholders
9:30 - 9:40 Introduction to Topic 4 Bailey Kacsmar
9:40 - 10:00 Privacy protections by the people, for the people Priyanka Nanayakkara
10:00 - 10:20 How, who, when, and where to communicate with legislators and regulators Kris Shrishak
10:20 - 10:40 Communicating Privacy-Preserving Tools to U.S. State Government Agencies Stephanie Straus
10:40 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 11:50 Breakout session
11:50 - 12:20 Shareback Session
12:20 - 1:30 Lunch (on your own)
1:30 - 3:30 Lightning Talks and Open Problems
3:00 - 4:00 Next steps and wrap-up

Speakers

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Shaanan Cohney
University of Melbourne
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Gabriel Kaptchuk
The University of Maryland, College Park
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Tamalika Mukherjee
Columbia University
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Priyanka Nanayakkara
Harvard University
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Kris Shrishak
Irish Council for Civil Liberties
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Adam Smith
Boston University
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Stephanie Straus
Georgetown University
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Jonathan Ullman
Northeastern University
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Wanrong Zhang
Harvard University

Organizers

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Clément Canonne
The University of Sydney
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Rachel Cummings
Columbia University
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Bailey Kacsmar
University of Alberta
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Amartya Sanyal
University of Copenhagen

Sponsors