Policy and Law
In policy and law, Dr. Sweeney contributed: (1) numerous real-world re-identification studies
[cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite];
(2) operational standards for determining compliance (e.g. HIPAA)
[cite,
cite,
cite
cite];
and, (3) real-world examples of surveillance with privacy protection
[cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite,
cite].
Scientific influence and impact:
- Dr. Sweeney's earliest re-identification studies were discussed and cited as reasons for approaches
taken in the HIPAA Privacy Rule [Gellman, Federal Register, et al.]. Four court
decisions cite and discuss her re-identifications, and in one case, her method was sealed
[Southern Illinoisian v. Dept. of Public Health]. Researchers have replicated her experiments in
other countries [Emam, et al.]. Legal scholars have discussed ramifications [Kerr, et al.] and
offer new legal theories to address her findings [Rothstein, Ohm, Weitzner, et al.].
- Attorneys publicly endorsed Dr. Sweeney's standard for determining HIPAA compliance as a means
of reducing litigation risk [Tupman, et al.] and support its use in practice [American
health lawyers, et al.]. Two companies have licenses to her related technology and use it
to commercially provide HIPAA Compliance Assessments [Privacert, et al.].
Other achievements: citation in the commentary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule and in Medical
Breach Regulation, in 4 court decisions; presentations at the European Union and the U.S.
Senate; Privacy Advocacy award; appointment to the Privacy and Security Seat of the Federal
HIT Policy Committee in the Obama Administration; and news articles
7.
See more about Dr. Sweeney's accomplishments with Identifiability of de-identified data,
HIPAA assessments, and Privacy-preserving surveillance.
Public Education
In public education, Dr. Sweeney contributed: (1) Identity Angel, which crawls the Web and notifies people of
sensitive personal information found about them on-line
[cite,
cite,
cite];
(2) SSNwatch, which validates Social
Security numbers
[cite];
and, (3) CameraWatch, which locates URLs of publicly available webcams
[cite,
cite].
7.
Scientific influence and impact:
- Dr. Sweeney's Identity Angel program
[cite,
cite,
cite]
found almost 10,000 Social Security numbers on-line
and attempted to email about 3000 individuals whose {SSN, email} were found. A
month later, about 2000 SSNs were removed. CBS News interviewed different people in
different cities for reactions and aired the interviews on local stations, e.g. Denver
[cbs4denver.com/video/?id=10164@kcnc.dayport.com].
- With respect to SSN validation, SSNwatch
[cite]
receives about 1000 hits/week. District
attorneys are primary users, seeming to match SSNs to information in statements.
- With respect to SSN prediction, Dr. Sweeney was first to warn of a pending crisis in the ability to
predict the 9 digits of a person's SSN given only {date of birth, home town}. A private
company confirmed her suspicion using millions of SSNs of live people. One of her
students, Ralph Gross, working with a colleague, Alessandro Acquisti, repeated the experiment using
SSNs of dead people and got publishable results and deserved media attention.
See more about Dr. Sweeney's accomplishments with Identity angel,
SSNwatch, and Camera Watch.
Notes
| 5 |
Helen Nissenbaum discusses design decisions made by technology developers. See her book, Privacy in Context (2009).
|
| 6 |
Working across areas is unorthodox. Rather than Dr. Sweeney's work residing in one community, which is customary, she pursues
scientific contributions of privacy in multiple communities and in the real-world too –in the places where
technology-privacy clashes are underway. This makes review of her work difficult for the same reasons it makes it
difficult to work across areas. Each area has its own language, concepts, history, and scientific methods. Even
though her papers are reviewed with the same rigor as others within a community, it is not easy to assess impact
from outside that community. So, an array of quantitative assessments are available.
|
| 7 |
Featured news articles for my work in surveillance, biometrics, policy and law, and public education include as
venues: Scientific American, CBS, NBC, ABC, Newsweek, USA Today, and National Public Radio.
|
Previous | Next
Related links: