Towards a Privacy Research Roadmap for the Computing Community

TL;DR

This paper proposes a comprehensive privacy research roadmap for the next decade, addressing societal concerns about personal data protection amidst technological advances, to foster trust and responsible data use.

Contribution

It offers a strategic plan for privacy research, synthesizing community input and guiding federal efforts to balance data benefits with privacy protections.

Findings

Identifies key privacy challenges for the next decade

Synthesizes community input and past reports

Provides strategic guidance for privacy research

Abstract

Great advances in computing and communication technology are bringing many benefits to society, with transformative changes and financial opportunities being created in health care, transportation, education, law enforcement, national security, commerce, and social interactions. Many of these benefits, however, involve the use of sensitive personal data, and thereby raise concerns about privacy. Failure to address these concerns can lead to a loss of trust in the private and public institutions that handle personal data, and can stifle the independent thought and expression that is needed for our democracy to flourish. This report, sponsored by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), suggests a roadmap for privacy research over the next decade, aimed at enabling society to appropriately control threats to privacy while enjoying the benefits of information technology and data science. We hope that it will be useful to the agencies of the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program as they develop a joint National Privacy Research Strategy over the coming months. The report synthesizes input drawn from the privacy and computing communities submitted to both the CCC and NITRD, as well as past reports on the topic.