Information Technology Research (ITR): Sensitive Information in a Wired World

在商业、政府、娱乐和日常生活的几乎所有方面，计算机和网络的使用不断增加，导致敏感数据（即如果使用不当，可能损害数据主体或其他相关方的数据）激增，对这些数据的所有权、控制权、隐私和准确性的担忧已成为首要任务。 尽管在相关研究领域（例如密码学和安全、数据库系统和数据挖掘）取得了重大技术成就，但没有全面的、端到端的技术基础设施来处理敏感数据的整个生命周期，甚至也没有就我们数据密集型、网络化世界中主要利益相关者的权利和责任达成广泛的社会共识。该项目是一个多机构、多学科、多模式的项目，全面研究网络世界中的敏感数据。 有两个主要的学术活动中心（耶鲁大学和斯坦福大学）、三个规模较小的学术参与者（史蒂文斯理工学院、纽约大学和新墨西哥大学），以及非学术合作伙伴的大量参与，包括技术公司（IBM、惠普和微软）、用户社区的代表（花旗集团、美国国立卫生研究院、耶鲁大学医学信息学中心、人口普查局和特勤局）以及华盛顿特区的政策组织（华盛顿特区政策中心）。民主与技术和电子隐私信息中心）。该项目的一个主要技术主题是隐私保护数据挖掘，更一般地说，是实现尊重个人权利和允许执法机构和其他合法组织收集和挖掘海量数据集的潜在冲突目标的技术。 其他技术议程项目包括（1）分布式数据的可访问性和可靠性（2）在加密数据库上运行，（3）数据远程控制，（4）排斥恶意数据，以及（5）数据管理系统的可审计性。 由于这些技术目标受到基本术语（尤其是“隐私”）含义缺乏共识的影响，因此该项目的一个主要目标是开发一个概念框架，用于研究以敏感数据处理为重点的权利、责任和公共政策。 该项目的这一部分纳入了“上下文完整性”的概念，在评估敏感性时考虑了数据集的上下文和内容。该项目的预计成果包括用于处理敏感信息的下一代技术，该技术在质量上优于当前一代技术，以及用于政策制定和对数据主体、数据所有者和数据用户的权利和责任进行哲学探究的有效概念框架。

Increasing use of computers and networks in business, government,recreation, and almost all aspects of daily life has led to aproliferation of sensitive data (i.e., data that, if used improperly,can harm data subjects or other relevant parties), and concern aboutthe ownership, control, privacy, and accuracy of these data has becomea top priority. Despite significant technical accomplishments in relevant research fields (e.g., cryptology and security, databasesystems, and data mining), there is no comprehensive, end-to-endtechnological infrastructure for handling sensitive data over the entire course of their lifetime, nor is there even widespread socialagreement about the rights and responsibilities of major stakeholdersin our data-intensive, networked world.This project is a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary, multi-modalproject that looks comprehensively at sensitive data in a networkedworld. There are two main academic centers of activity (Yale andStanford), three smaller-scale academic participants (StevensInstitute of Technology, NYU, and the University of New Mexico), andsubstantial participation by non-academic partners, includingtechnology companies, (IBM, HP, and Microsoft), representatives ofuser communities (Citigroup, NIH, Yale Center for Medical Informatics,the Census Bureau, and the Secret Service), and DC-based policyorganizations (The Center for Democracy and Technology and TheElectronic Privacy Information Center).A major technical theme of the project is privacy-preserving datamining, and, more generally, techniques for meeting the potentiallyconflicting goals of respecting individual rights and allowing lawenforcement and other legitimate organizations to collect and minemassive data sets. Other technical agenda items include (1)accessibility and reliability of distributed data (2) operating onencrypted databases, (3) remote control of data, (4) repelling hostiledata, and (5) auditability of data-management systems. Because thesetechnical goals are affected by lack of agreement about the meaningsof basic terms, most notably "privacy," a major goal of the project isthe development of a conceptual framework for the study of rights,responsibilities, and public policies focused on sensitive-datahandling. This part of the project incorporates the notion of"contextual integrity," which considers both the context and thecontent of data sets in assessing sensitivity.Projected outcomes of the project include a next generation oftechnology for handling sensitive information that is qualitativelybetter than the current generation's and an effective conceptualframework for policy making and philosophical inquiry into the rightsand responsibilities of data subjects, data owners, and data users.