Personalized Privacy Assistant Project

Opt-Out Easy Released

2021-01-01T12:00:00+00:00

Our group just released Opt-Out Easy -- a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, that uses machine learning to automatically identify opt-out choices buried deep in the text of privacy policies. This should increase awareness of available opt-out choices and enable people to more readily exercise these choices. Here’s the CyLab press release. This research was also published at the 2020 Web Conference.

New IoT Privacy Infrastructure and IoT Assistant app

2020-12-01T12:00:00+00:00

We have released a new version of our IoT Privacy Infrastructure and IoT Assistant app. The infrastructure enables people to publicize the presence of IoT data collection processes at different locations and the IoT Assistant app enables people to discover them. Check it out!

New options in Carnegie Mellon University Privacy Engineering Program

2020-11-01T12:00:00+00:00

Just announced two new options in our privacy engineering program. Both options are designed for working professionals interested in getting privacy engineering training without having to leave their existing jobs.

2020 USENIX Conference on Privacy Engineering Practice and Respect

2020-10-01T12:00:00+00:00

Norman Sadeh gave a presentation on the "Design of a Privacy Infrastructure for the Internet of Things" at the PEPR'20 conference.

Annual Federal Trade Commission’s PrivacyCon Conference

2020-07-21T15:56:45+00:00

Our group presents three articles at the annual Federal Trade Commission’s Privacy Con conference (see also CyLab press release):

Zhang, Feng, Das, Bauer, Cranor and Sadeh, Understanding People’s Privacy Attitudes Towards Video Analytics
Habib, Zou, Jannu, Sridhar, Swoopes, Acquisti, Cranor, Sadeh, Schaub, An Empirical Analysis of Data Deletion and Opt-Out Choices on 150 Websites
Habib, Pearman, Wang, Zou, Acquisti, Cranor, Sadeh, Schaub, ‘It’s a Scavenger Hunt’: Usability of Websites’ Opt-Out and Data Deletion Choices

Presentation at PETS2020

2020-07-01T12:00:00+00:00

Daniel Smullen presents our work on The Best of Both Worlds: Mitigating Accuracy and User Burden in Capturing People’s Mobile App Privacy Preferences at the 20th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium. Here’s the CyLab press release.

Apple Introduces Mobile App Privacy Nutrition Labels

2020-06-01T12:00:00+00:00

Apple iOS14 introduces mobile app privacy nutrition labels similar to those proposed in the CHI’2013 co-authored with Patrick Gage Kelley and Lorrie Cranor – Apple informed us a little before the announcement…

Virtual Event: Privacy+Security Forum Spring Academy

2020-05-01T12:00:00+00:00

May 2020: Norman Sadeh to present at the Privacy + Security Forum, as part of panel on "IoT Privacy in the Age of CCPA & GDPR".

Launch of our IoT Privacy Infrastructure is getting good press coverage (over 20 articles)!

2020-02-27T12:00:00+00:00

Here are 5 articles:
CNET: This app lets you see IoT devices around you and what data they’re taking

Engadget: Carnegie Mellon built an ‘opt-out’ system for nearby tracking devices

Gizmodo: This App Tells You When Nearby Smart Devices Are Snooping on You

VICE: What the Hell Is That Device, and Is It Spying on You? This App Might Have the Answer

BoingBoing: New app helps you identify IoT devices around you, tells you what data they collect

Now Available! Privacy Infrastructure for the Internet of Things

2020-02-19T12:00:00+00:00

Our Privacy Infrastructure for the Internet of Things is now available. Use our IoT Portal to publicize the presence of IoT resources and their data practices, and use our IoT Assistant app to discover and control data collection around you (available both for iOS and Android phones). Check out our video and also CMU's CyLab press release.

SOUPS 2019 - Half a Day Tutorial - 9:00 AM to Noon, August 11th, 2019, Santa Clara, CA

2019-08-01T20:01:59+00:00

Norman Sadeh, Helen Nissenbaum and Serge Egelman to give SOUPS tutorial on 'Contextual Integrity: From Theory to Practice'. This will include discussions of our research on user privacy preference and expectation modeling and privacy assistants. For more information, see our tutorial announcement here.

IAPP Global Privacy Forum

2019-05-01T20:42:52+00:00

PI Sadeh and Cranor present their research at IAPP Global Privacy Forum, with PI Cranor focusing on "Designing Notice and Consent for IoT" and PI Sadeh presenting our project's Privacy Infrastructure for IoT and our work on Privacy Assistants.

AAAI Spring Symposium

2019-03-01T20:42:14+00:00

The 2019 AAAI Spring Symposium on Privacy-Enhancing Artificial Intelligence and Language Technologies is co-organized by Norman Sadeh.

Debating Ethics: Dignity and Respect in Data-Driven Life

2018-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Norman Sadeh was on a plenary panel at the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners held at the European Parliament in Brussels. A CyLab Q&A, following the panel can be found here. You can watch a video of Norman's initial remarks here, watch the full panel here, or read the conference report.

IPEN Privacy Engineering Workshop 2018

2018-06-01T17:31:30+00:00

Peter Story presented our work on The Mobile App Privacy Compliance System at the IPEN Privacy Engineering Workshop in Barcelona, Spain.

SAC-PA2 Workshop

2018-06-01T17:30:31+00:00

Dr. Norman Sadeh gave a keynote presentation on "Privacy in the Age of the Internet of Things" at the SAC-PA2 Workshop.

Annual Privacy Forum 2018

2018-06-01T17:29:27+00:00

Peter Story presented our study of Google Play Store metadata, "Which Apps have Privacy Policies?", at the Annual Privacy Forum in Barcelona, Spain.

Panelists at IAPP

2018-03-21T15:19:05+00:00

Lorrie Cranor and Norman Sadeh are panelists at IAPP’s Inaugural Privacy Engineering Section Forum at the IAPP Global Summit, Washington DC.

Presentation at FTC's Annual Privacy Conference

2018-02-28T06:00:00+00:00

Our research group presents two papers and several posters at the FTC’s annual Privacy Conference. Panelists include Pardis Naeini for our work on capturing people's IoT privacy preferences and Norman Sadeh for our work on developing privacy assistants to help users keep up with the broad deployment of cameras and computer vision algorithms. Daniel Smullen will present a poster, titled "Personalized Privacy Assistant for IoT".

Hazim Almuhimedi receives his PhD

2017-12-01T06:00:00+00:00

Graduate student, Hazim Almuhimedi, receives his PhD for his dissertation on “Helping Smartphone Users Manage their Privacy with Nudges“

Keynote at GDPR Privacy Engineering Workshop

2017-11-01T06:00:00+00:00

Prof. Norman Sadeh delivers a keynote at workshop on Privacy Engineering Research and the GDPR: A Trans-Atlantic Initiative in Leuven, Belgium. Find the presentation materials here.

Panelist at Privacy + Security Forum

2017-10-11T22:48:57+00:00

Norman Sadeh participated in the panel for “From Big Data, to Machine Learning, to AI” at the Privacy + Security Forum in Washington, DC

CDT on Connected Cars

2017-08-11T09:35:53+00:00

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) relies on results from our Mobile App Privacy Compliance tool in a study conducted to provide follow-up comments to the FTC/NHTSA workshop on Connected Cars

Presentation of Privacy Infrastructure Work

2017-07-21T09:12:50+00:00

Our work on "Assisting Users in a World Full of Cameras: A Privacy-aware Infrastructure for Computer Vision Applications" is beeing presented at a workshop on "The Bright and Dark Sides of Computer Vision: Challenges and Opportunities for Privacy and Security" in Hawaii.

Best Paper and Distinguished Poster Award

2017-07-21T09:09:17+00:00

Our paper on A Scalable and Privacy-Aware IoT Service for Live Video Analytics won the best paper award at the ACM Multimedia Systems Conference 2017 and we received a distinguished poster award at SOUPS 2017.

SOUPS 2017

2017-07-01T12:21:59+00:00

Consider registering for our SOUPS tutorial. We will cover new technologies, tools and findings coming out of our Usable Privacy Policy and Privacy Assistant projects.

Presentation of joint work with UCI at IoTCA

2017-06-05T10:00:00+00:00

A paper on our collaboration with UCI on the deployment of our Privacy Assistant Infrastructure in UCI's Bren Hall was presented at IoT Computing and Applications Workshop.

PLSC 2017

2017-06-01T12:22:43+00:00

Our work on "Mobile App Privacy Compliance: Automated Technology to Help Regulators, App Stores and Developers" will be presented at the Privacy Law Scholar Conference (PLSC) by Sebastian Zimmeck. The co-authors are Ziqi Wang, Lieyong Zou, Roger Iyengar, Bin Liu, Florian Schaub, Shomir Wilson, Norman Sadeh, Steven M. Bellovin, and Joel Reidenberg.

ConPro ’17

2017-05-21T12:22:55+00:00

Invited presentation by Norman Sadeh on our research at FTC Technology and Consumer Protection Workshop (ConPro ’17) in San Jose (co-located with 38th IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy).

Privacy Assistant Featured in MIT Technology review

2017-05-13T10:43:03+00:00

The MIT Technology Review released an article about our Privacy Assistant for Android.

Mobile App Compliance

2017-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Our mobile app privacy compliance work is featured on CyLab's website

More Coverage of Mobile Privacy Assistant

2017-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Our Mobile App Personalized Privacy Assistant received further coverage, including articles in the Boston Globe and the IAPP Dashboard.

News Coverage of Privacy Assistant Release

2017-02-13T09:55:27+00:00

The launch of our Privacy Assistant for Mobile Apps is also getting some nice press coverage, including PC magazine and The Verge.

Privacy Assistant for Android released

2017-02-09T12:00:00+00:00

Just released first version of our Privacy Assistant in Google Play store. For the time being, it’s only available for rooted Android phones. Hoping that over time we can make it available to everyone.

NDSS & PrivacyCon 2017

2017-01-12T12:00:00+00:00

Our work on a mobile app privacy compliance tool was presented at the FTC PrivacyCon conference in January 2017 and a paper on the tool, including our collaboration with the California Office of the Attorney General has also been accepted for publication at NDSS 2017.

CMU Press Release About Mobile App Compliance

2016-11-16T08:53:43+00:00

CMU press release on our mobile app compliance tool and our work with the California Office of the Attorney General features Sebastian Zimmeck and Norman Sadeh.

AAAI Privacy and Language Technology Symposium

2016-11-10T19:28:19+00:00

Sebastian Zimmeck will present results on our Mobile App Privacy Compliance tool at the AAAI Privacy and Language Technology Symposium in DC. This is work funded under our NSF Frontier project on Usable Privacy Policy Project and our DARPA Bradeis Personalized Privacy Assistant Project.

Collaboration with California AG

2016-10-30T19:24:52+00:00

The California AG's Office has been piloting our Mobile App Privacy Compliance tool for the past several months. See recent press release from the Cal AG's Office. This is work funded under our NSF Frontier project on Usable Privacy Policy Project and our DARPA Brandeis Personalized Privacy Assistant Project.

Featured in CIO Magazine

2016-09-16T01:12:42+00:00

Our Privacy Assistant research is featured in CIO Magazine's article.

FTC Chairwoman Highlights our Project

2016-08-22T21:54:19+00:00

FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez mentions our Personalized Privacy Assistant project in her keynote address at the Technology Policy Institute Aspen Forum.

Press Coverage

2016-07-02T09:33:42+00:00

Our Personalized Privacy Assistant is featured on CMU’s home page and also in Tech Crunch and Science Daily.

IAPP SOUPS Privacy Award

2016-06-29T09:33:42+00:00

Our article on Personalized Privacy Assistants for Mobile App Permissions, “Follow My Recommendations: A Personalized Assistant for Mobile App Permissions” received the IAPP SOUPS Privacy Award

SOUPS '16

2016-06-28T10:33:42+00:00

Project members will present three papers at the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) in Denver, CO, at the end of June:

Expecting the Unexpected: Understanding Mismatched Privacy Expectations Online
A. Rao, F. Schaub, N. Sadeh, A. Acquisti, R. Kang,

How Short is Too Short? Implications of Length and Framing on the Effectiveness of Privacy Notices 
J. Gluck, F. Schaub, A. Friedman, H. Habib, N. Sadeh, L. F. Cranor, Y. Agarwal

Follow My Recommendations: A Personalized Privacy Assistant for Mobile App Permissions 
B. Liu, M. S. Andersen, F. Schaub, H. Almuhimedi, S. Zhang, N. Sadeh, Y. Agarwal, A. Acquisti

Expert address at Hong Kong University

2016-06-01T10:33:42+00:00

Norman Sadeh delivers expert address on "Privacy in the Age of IoT: New Technologies for Users and Regulators at Hong Kong University

Privacy Risk Summit 2016

2016-06-01T09:33:42+00:00

Florian Schaub speaks on "Designing Notice and Consent for the Internet of Things" at the Privacy Risk Summit 2016 in San Francisco.

Privacy Day

2016-01-28T22:10:08+00:00

Privacy Day: “Celebrating Privacy Day at CMU: PI Sadeh and Cranor host Ed Felten, US Deputy Chief Technology Officer" – more details available here.

PPA at World Economic Forum

2016-01-19T22:33:52+00:00

Lorrie Cranor presents our work on Personalized Privacy Assistants at Davos Conference. See the general video here and Lorrie's presentation.

Presentation at FTC

2016-01-14T22:34:28+00:00

Norman Sadeh presents our research on Personalized Privacy Assistants at first FTC Privacy Conference ("Privacy Con") – see also here for an IAPP summary of the event highlighting our research.

Paper Selected by the Future of Privacy Forum

2016-01-13T22:34:46+00:00

The paper "A Design Space for Effective Privacy Notices" (pdf) by Florian Schaub, Rebecca Balebako, Adam Durity and Lorrie Cranor has been selected by the Future of Privacy Forum as one of five Privacy Papers for Policymakers 2015.

Presentation at UCI

2015-11-21T22:35:05+00:00

Norman Sadeh presents at UC Irvine’s Informatics Seminar: Notice and Choice for IoT: Why We Need Personalized Privacy Assistants.[slides]

Awarded DARPA Brandeis Grant

2015-10-22T10:33:42+00:00

"Awarded DARPA Brandeis Grant to work on Personalized Privacy Assistants for the Internet of Things and Big Data": PIs: Norman Sadeh (Lead PI), Alessandro Acquisti, Lujo Bauer, Lorrie Cranor, and Anupam Datta. This projects involves a close collaboration with UC Irvine and Honeywell.

Awarded NSF SBE Grant

2015-09-22T10:33:42+00:00

Sadeh, Cranor and Agarwal awarded National Science Foundation SBE grant to study Personalized Privacy Assistants for smartphone apps with a particular focus on user behavior and privacy decision making.

Received Google Research Award

2015-09-21T10:33:42+00:00

Norman Sadeh is the recipient of a Summer 2015 Google Research Award for his work on learning people’s mobile app privacy preferences.

Organized Workshop at SOUPS

2015-07-20T10:33:42+00:00

Acquisti and Sadeh are co-organizers of the 2nd annual workshop on Privacy Personas and Segmentation at SOUPS 2015.

Google Web of Things Expedition

2015-07-18T10:33:42+00:00

Sadeh, Bauer and Cranor have been selected to lead the development of novel privacy technologies for Google’s new Web of Things initiative – see CMU press release and a few other articles in the press (e.g., Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Campus Technology )

Lots of Press Coverage

2015-03-18T10:33:42+00:00

Nice article in the Wall Street Journal on our mobile app privacy research. The full study will be presented at CHI’2015 next month. Here’s also the CMU press release. Around 50 stories have been published in the past few days (including articles in the US, UK, Germany, France, India, Brazil, China, Vietnam, Netherlands and more). Here is the one in Wired and here’s a cool blog post in futurity that also talks about our work on personalized privacy assistants.