Corporate and government partnership is intended as a low-cost mechanism for partners to learn more about data privacy problems and solutions, to gain access to LIDAP faculty and graduating students and to obtain a rapid turnaround study by LIDAP researchers specific to the partner’s needs. Corporate and government membership, on the other hand, is a way in which organizations can be affiliated with the LIDAP and receive internal publications, but members do not work directly with faculty and students.
One benefit to which partners are entitled is a quick turnaround study on a problem of interest to the partner. This is intended to provide corporate and government partners with useful short-term input on problems they consider important, while enabling both the corporate partner and LIDAP faculty to evaluate the potential of this topic for a longer-term targeted research effort.
For example, a company with a database of customer records may wish to define a turnaround project to apply existing LIDAP techniques to sufficiently render the data anonymous so that copies can be sold to marketing companies without revealing the identities of the customers. In this case, the company will provide the information in a single file and LIDAP researchers would perform analyses and experiments. Within three to six months, a brief written report will be provided and a face-to-face meeting will be held to discuss the results.
As another example, a government agency may historically release data each year on a certain population and may wish to define a turnaround project to apply existing LIDAP re-identification techniques to determine whether the data are sufficiently anonymous; and if not, what vulnerabilities may exist. Within three to six months, a brief written report will be provided and a face-to-face meeting will be held to discuss the results.
As another example, when somewhat aged replicated information is declassified differently by one government agency than by another, the overall declassification effort suffers; by using two partial releases, the original may be reconstructed in its entirety. One of the government agencies may wish to define a turnaround project to apply existing LIDAP knowledge of data sources and automated techniques to refine declassification rules so information can be released with assurances of confidentiality. Within three to six months, a brief written report will be provided and a face-to-face meeting will be held to discuss the results.
As another example, when a government agency is faced with a Freedom of Information Act request for sensitive person-specific information, the agency may wish to define a turnaround project to apply existing LIDAP techniques to demonstrate which data values may be released or not to ensure privacy. Within three to six months, a brief written report will be provided and a face-to-face meeting will be held to discuss the results.
As a final example, a non-profit organization may be exploring different privacy policies or proposals for legislation and may wish to define a turnaround project to apply existing LIDAP metrics to determine the comparative impact and effectiveness of these proposals. Within three to six months, a brief written report will be provided and a face-to-face meeting will be held to discuss the results.
These are just a few examples of the kinds of turnaround projects possible through the LIDAP. If the results of any of these appear promising, the corporate or government partner may choose to fund a more targeted research effort on this topic.
Membership includes:
Partnership includes:
The LIDAP and Carnegie Mellon University reserve the right to refuse to accept any membership, partnership or project.
Corporate and government members and partners are invited to arrange additional targeted research projects with individual LIDAP faculty or groups of faculty. Such specific projects will be performed at cost. A prototypical two-year project involving a single faculty member and a single graduate student will typically cost in the range of $90-150k/year. We expect successful turnaround projects may lead to such long-term targeted projects.
The LIDAP has the leading systems and algorithms for rendering data sufficiently anonymous. They include: (1) the Scrub System, which locates and replaces personally identifying information in textual documents; (2) the Datafly System, which generalizes and suppresses values in field-structured data sets; and, (3) the k-Similar algorithm, which finds optimal solutions such that data are minimally distorted while still providing adequate protection. These are some of the tools in the restricted LIDAP collection. For information on these systems and on acquiring a license to restricted LIDAP software or data, see license.
The scientific and policy problems addressed by the LIDAP are also of considerable interest to government agencies such as NSF, DARPA, NIST, DOE, NIH and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The majority of current research funding for LIDAP faculty comes from such agencies, and we expect this to continue in the future.
Related LIDAP links