Professor Brad Malin, Vanderbilt University, will speak on Risk-based Privacy: What are we Afraid Of?, at the Australian National Unviersity in Canberra, 10:30am, 14 November 2011.

ANU Research School of Computer Science Seminar

Risk-based Privacy: What are we Afraid Of?

Assoc Prof Brad Malin (Vanderbilt University )

COMPUTER SCIENCE SEMINAR

DATE: 2011-11-14
TIME: 10:30:00 - 11:30:00
LOCATION: CSIT Seminar Room, N101 ...

ABSTRACT:
Over the past decade, an increasing number of detective-like investigations have illustrated that "de-identified" data is susceptible to "re-identification". The majority of these studies proven the feasibility of attack, while certain studies, such as those with the search queries from 650,000 AOL users have led to high-profile New York Times articles and class action lawsuits. As personal information becomes ever more available, it has been suggested that de-identification as a data protection mechanism has failed and that society should search for legal and policy solutions that deter misuse instead. However, these critiques neglect the fact that feasibility is not equivalent to inevitability and that re-identification may be harder to accomplish in the real world than current studies suggest.

In this talk, we will review the re-identification phenomenon as it has been realized in various domains, but also investigate how current social, computational, and legal constraints influence the risk of a successful attack. In addition, we will consider how computational risk frameworks can be designed and applied to assess the likelihood of success, as well as how formal data obfuscation strategies can be deployed to control the risk without precluding the sharing of data for worthwhile scientific purposes. This presentation will draw upon examples from the healthcare domain, with a particular focus on the U.S. National Institutes of Health- sponsored Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) consortium.
BIO:
Brad Malin is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, where he directs the Health Information Privacy Laboratory (HIPLab).

Under his direction, the HIPLab has developed various approaches to trustworthy health data management, including intelligent auditing technologies to protect electronic medical records from misuse in the context of primary care and algorithms to formally anonymize patient information disseminated for secondary research purposes. Research artifacts from the HIPLab have received several awards of distinction from the American and International Medical Informatics Associations.

In 2010, Dr. Malin was honored as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. He completed his education at Carnegie Mellon University, where he received a bachelor's in biological sciences, a master's in data mining and knowledge discovery, a master's in public policy and management, and a doctorate in computer science.