BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:IEEE vTools.Events//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20250309T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20241103T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=11 TZNAME:EST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20250311T014913Z UID:84649143-8CFA-4CFE-8B47-12B4DEA9BDD0 DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250306T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250306T203000 DESCRIPTION:Boston Chapter of IEEE Computer Society\, IEEE NJ Coast IM/C Jo int\nChapter\, IEEE Northwest Florida Section Chap\, and GBC/ACM\n\n7:00 P M\, Thursday\, 6 March 2025\n\nMIT Room 32-G449 (Kiva) and online via Zoom \n\nHow Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) let governments and business share sensitive data while protecting privacy\n\nSimson Garfinkel\n\nPlea se register in advance for this seminar even if you plan to attend in pers on at\n\n<https://acm-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/3417379974367/WN_jwgTYm klQSu6Thc23XOMtQ>\n\nAfter registering\, you will receive a confirmation e mail containing information about joining the webinar.\n\nIndicate on the registration form if you plan to attend in person. This will help us deter mine whether the room is close to reaching capacity. We plan to serve ligh t refreshments (probably pizza) before the talk starting at around 6:30 pm . Letting us know you will come in person will help us determine how much pizza to order.\n\nWe may make some auxiliary material such as slides and access to the recording available after the seminar to people who have reg istered.\n\nAbstract:\n\nTax returns and financial filings\, health record s\, education records\, and crime data are just some of the detailed and h ighly sensitive data that governments have about people.\n\nBusinesses als o have huge archives of sensitive data\, including consumer purchases\, ce llphone mobility traces\, and video surveillance. Today a tiny fraction of these data are released as “open data” or sold as “de-identified da ta.” The rest are locked up\, unable to benefit society or promote new e conomic activity. Worse\, much of that allegedly de-identified data can ac tually be re-identified\, as happened when journalists at The Pillar used de-identified data to identify Catholic priests who were going to gay bars and using hookup apps.\n\nPrivacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) use advan ced mathematics and computational techniques to let organizations analyze and publish sensitive data while protecting the privacy of individuals and sensitive data from organizations. These techniques have existed for deca des and are increasingly being deployed by governments and businesses. PET s are not without controversy. When the US Census Bureau adopted a PET cal led “differential privacy” for the 2020 Census\, more than 4000 academ ics signed an open letter voicing their opposition: they were concerned th at differential privacy would do such a good job protecting privacy that t he resulting data would be useless for academic research.\n\nThis talk pre sents the case for PETs\, explains popular PETs for a non-technical audien ce\, and discusses the specific controversy of deploying differential priv acy for the 2020 US Census.\n\nThis is discussed in more detail in his lat est book [Differential Privacy](https://mitdpbook.com/).\n\nBio:\n\nSimson Garfinkel is the Chief Scientist and Chief Operating Officer of BasisTech in Somerville\, Massachusetts. He was previously a program scientist at A I2050\, part of Schmidt Futures. He has held several roles across governme nt\, including a Senior Data Scientist at the Department of Homeland Secur ity\, the US Census Bureau's Senior Computer Scientist for Confidentiality and Data Access and a computer scientist at the National Institute of Sta ndards and Technology. From 2006 to 2015\, he was an associate professor a t the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey\, California. In addition to h is research\, Garfinkel is a journalist\, an entrepreneur and an inventor\ ; his work is generally concerned with computer security\, privacy and inf ormation technology.\n\nSimson is the author or co-author of 16 books\, an d the author of more than a thousand articles. He is a contributing writer for Technology Review and has written as a freelancer for many publicatio ns including Wired magazine\, The Boston Globe\, Privacy Journal\, and CSO Magazine. His work for CSO Magazine earned him five regional and national journalism awards\, including the Jesse H. Neal Business Journalism Award s in 2003 and 2004. He is also the editor of The Forensics Wiki.\n\nDirect ions to 32-G449 - MIT Stata Center\, 32 Vassar Street\, Cambridge\, MA: Pl ease use the main entrance to the Stata Center at 32 Vassar Street (the en trance closest to Main street) as those doors will be unlocked. Upon enter ing\, proceed to the elevators which will be on the right after passing a large set of stairs and a MITAC kiosk. Take the elevator to the 4th floor and turn right\, following the hall to an open area\; 32-G449 will be on t he left. [Location of Stata on campus map](https://whereis.mit.edu/?go=32) \n\nThis joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM will be hybrid (in person and online).\n\nUp-to-date informati on about this and other talks is available online at https://ewh.ieee.org/ r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at https://ma ilman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs\, our self-administered mailing lis t.\n\nCo-sponsored by: gbc/acm\n\nSpeaker(s): Simson Garfinkel\, \n\nRoom: MIT Room 32-G449 (Kiva\, Bldg: Stata Center\, MIT building 32\, 32 Vassar st\, Cambridge\, Massachusetts\, United States LOCATION:Room: MIT Room 32-G449 (Kiva\, Bldg: Stata Center\, MIT building 3 2\, 32 Vassar st\, Cambridge\, Massachusetts\, United States ORGANIZER:p.mager@computer.org SEQUENCE:40 SUMMARY:Simson Garfinkel talk on "How Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) let governments and business share sensitive data while protecting privac y" URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/470192 X-ALT-DESC:Description: <br /><h2>Boston Chapter of IEEE Computer Society\, IEEE NJ Coast IM/C Joint<br>Chapter\, IEEE Northwest Florida Section Chap \, and GBC/ACM</h2>\n<h4>7:00 PM\, Thursday\, 6 March 2025</h4>\n<p>MIT Ro om 32-G449 (Kiva) and online via Zoom</p>\n<p>&nbsp\;</p>\n<h4>How Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) let governments and business share sensitiv e data while protecting privacy</h4>\n<h4>Simson Garfinkel</h4>\n<p>&nbsp\ ;</p>\n<h4>Please register in advance for this seminar even if you plan to attend in person at</h4>\n<p class="p1">&lt\;https://acm-org.zoom.us/webi nar/register/3417379974367/WN_jwgTYmklQSu6Thc23XOMtQ&gt\;</p>\n<p>After re gistering\, you will receive a confirmation email containing information a bout joining the webinar.</p>\n<p>Indicate on the registration form if you plan to attend in person. This will help us determine whether the room is close to reaching capacity. We plan to serve light refreshments (probably pizza) before the talk starting at around 6:30 pm. Letting us know you wi ll come in person will help us determine how much pizza to order.</p>\n<p> We may make some auxiliary material such as slides and access to the recor ding available after the seminar to people who have registered.</p>\n<p>Ab stract:</p>\n<p>Tax returns and financial filings\, health records\, educa tion records\, and crime data are just some of the detailed and highly sen sitive data that governments have about people.</p>\n<p>Businesses also ha ve huge archives of sensitive data\, including consumer purchases\, cellph one mobility traces\, and video surveillance. Today a tiny fraction of the se data are released as &ldquo\;open data&rdquo\; or sold as &ldquo\;de-id entified data.&rdquo\; The rest are locked up\, unable to benefit society or promote new economic activity. Worse\, much of that allegedly de-identi fied data can actually be re-identified\, as happened when journalists at The Pillar used de-identified data to identify Catholic priests who were g oing to gay bars and using hookup apps.</p>\n<p>Privacy Enhancing Technolo gies (PETs) use advanced mathematics and computational techniques to let o rganizations analyze and publish sensitive data while protecting the priva cy of individuals and sensitive data from organizations. These techniques have existed for decades and are increasingly being deployed by government s and businesses. PETs are not without controversy. When the US Census Bur eau adopted a PET called &ldquo\;differential privacy&rdquo\; for the 2020 Census\, more than 4000 academics signed an open letter voicing their opp osition: they were concerned that differential privacy would do such a goo d job protecting privacy that the resulting data would be useless for acad emic research.</p>\n<p>This talk presents the case for PETs\, explains pop ular PETs for a non-technical audience\, and discusses the specific contro versy of deploying differential privacy for the 2020 US Census.</p>\n<p>Th is is discussed in more detail in his latest book&nbsp\;<a href="https://m itdpbook.com/">Differential Privacy&nbsp\;</a>.</p>\n<p>Bio:</p>\n<p>Simso n Garfinkel is the Chief Scientist and Chief Operating Officer of BasisTec h in Somerville\, Massachusetts. He was previously a program scientist at AI2050\, part of Schmidt Futures. He has held several roles across governm ent\, including a Senior Data Scientist at the Department of Homeland Secu rity\, the US Census Bureau's Senior Computer Scientist for Confidentialit y and Data Access and a computer scientist at the National Institute of St andards and Technology. From 2006 to 2015\, he was an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey\, California. In addition to his research\, Garfinkel is a journalist\, an entrepreneur and an inventor \; his work is generally concerned with computer security\, privacy and in formation technology.</p>\n<p>Simson is the author or co-author of 16 book s\, and the author of more than a thousand articles. He is a contributing writer for Technology Review and has written as a freelancer for many publ ications including Wired magazine\, The Boston Globe\, Privacy Journal\, a nd CSO Magazine. His work for CSO Magazine earned him five regional and na tional journalism awards\, including the Jesse H. Neal Business Journalism Awards in 2003 and 2004. He is also the editor of The Forensics Wiki.</p> \n<p>Directions to 32-G449 - MIT Stata Center\, 32 Vassar Street\, Cambrid ge\, MA: Please use the main entrance to the Stata Center at 32 Vassar Str eet (the entrance closest to Main street) as those doors will be unlocked. Upon entering\, proceed to the elevators which will be on the right after passing a large set of stairs and a MITAC kiosk. Take the elevator to the 4th floor and turn right\, following the hall to an open area\; 32-G449 w ill be on the left.&nbsp\;<a href="https://whereis.mit.edu/?go=32">Locatio n of Stata on campus map</a></p>\n<p class="norm10">This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM will be hybrid (in person and online).</p>\n<p>Up-to-date information about this and oth er talks is available online at https://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at https://mailman.mit.edu/mailman /listinfo/ieee-cs\, our self-administered mailing list.</p> END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR