Privacy

There are many deffinitions of privacy, in this class we will learn about: contextual privacy, boundary management, user control over data flows, and some privacy laws.

Slides

2025 Slides

• 19-Privacy
• 20-Privacy

Topics

• Definition of privacy
• Data privacy tactics
• Data privacy approaches in the US and Canada
• Privacy harms examples

Learing Goals

1. Explain multiple definitions of privacy, including privacy as confidentiality, control over information flows, anonymity, pseudonymity, and contextual integrity.
2. Differentiate privacy from security, particularly why confidentiality, encryption, and access control alone do not guarantee privacy.
3. Describe how trust operates in online systems, including trust transfer, collective trust signals, and the role of privacy policies as cross‑site trust mechanisms.
4. Explain why privacy policies emerged as a technical‑legal response to trust problems in early e‑commerce.
5. Explain the role of enforcement bodies (e.g., FTC, OPC) and how inaccurate or misleading privacy policies can result in sanctions.
6. Contrast GDPR with U.S. privacy models, especially differences in responsibility allocation between users, organizations, and governments.
7. Explain why encryption ≠ privacy, using adversary models to explain the difference.

Additional Resources

• Protecting Privacy in Practice: The current use, development and limits of Privacy Enhancing Technologies in data analysis by the Royal Society, March 2019
• The State of Web Privacy: How Wrongful Collection is Redefining Digital Risk by Coalition. - Takes a insurance-focused view to privacy breaches and observes that incorrect collection of data is being successfully litigated in the United States.