Silicon Valley Privacy Roundtable
Last week, I had the privilege of attending an event co-hosted by the IEEE Digital Privacy Initiative and the Centre for Information Policy Leadership. The roundtable addressed Privacy Engineering: Aligning Technology, Principles, and Governance. This was an invitation-only event in San Francisco attended by civil society groups, industry practitioners, and academics. The event was conducted under the Chatham House Rule to encourage an open discussion. The organisers are planning to publish a report; in the meantime, I wanted to share my high-level impressions about the event.
The event started with a keynote from Michelle Dennedy, the original privacy engineer and author of "The Privacy Engineers Manifesto". Three moderated roundtable discussions followed this:
- Level-Setting Privacy Expectations: How to get stakeholders on the same page. This was a rich discussion on facilitating collaborative communications, identifying how consumers can effectively communicate their privacy preferences, and how enterprises can define and agree on acceptable levels of privacy risk.
- From Principles to Implementation: How to build products that respect privacy with a focus on AI. I had the privilege of moderating this discussion, which focused on embedding privacy expectations into the fabric of technology, AI design, development, and deployment. This included ensuring transparency and explainability in AI models while respecting privacy, as well as implementing effective data governance measures.
- A Balancing Act: How PETs can deliver a win-win for personal privacy and corporate goals. The focus of this roundtable included aligning PETS with business objectives and overcoming barriers to adoption, measuring the successor PETS for all stakeholders, and identifying what is necessary to foster greater PETs adoption.
All in all, it was an excellent event. There was a possibly unsurprising convergence in the room as people identified common issues and focused on figuring out how to address them. The attendees I talked to were in consensus that this was a discussion worth continuing. I'm hopeful that there can be an East Coast version of this in the fall. In the meantime, if any of these topics interest you, please feel free to comment below. I look forward to sharing the report when it becomes available. For more information, see:
