TC: Medium: Privacy and Declassification Policy Enforcement Framework

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Information systems that handle personal information must adhere tolegal regulations, corporate privacy policies, and contractualagreements designed to protect personal privacy. Relying exclusivelyon application designers and developers for such assurances isunrealistic. There is a need for methods and tools that can identifyerrors in the handing of personal data and provide formal assurancesthat personal information is handled appropriately.This project is developing a software development framework that usesnovel language-based techniques to ensure that software enforcesprivacy policies. Privacy policies (based on legal and regulatoryrequirements) are formally specified in temporal logic, and identifycircumstances under which information can be shared (based on criteriasuch as the roles of individuals involved, prior events, and whetherthe data has been aggregated) and future obligations that are incurredas a result of the information sharing. The framework consists ofpolicy analysis tools, a programming language, program analysis toolsthat verify both privacy and declassification policies are enforced,and a runtime environment. Used in concert, these components producedistributed information systems that verifiably handle personalinformation appropriately.The framework being developed by this project will address problemsfaced by many information systems. However, the project will focusespecially on the needs of the medical industry, both with respect topatient records and clinical trials. As medical practice transitionsto electronic medical records, the need for high-assurance systemsbecomes increasingly acute. This project will develop thecapabilities needed to verify that electronic medical recordssystems comply with applicable privacy policies.