Technology, Privacy and Security

Helen Nissenbaum is Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, and of Computer Science, at New York University, where she is also Director of the Information Law Institute. Her areas of expertise include the social, ethical, and political implications of information technology and digital media. She has written and edited four books, including Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life. Her research centers on privacy, trust online and security, as well as studies on the values embodied in computer system design, including search engines, digital games facial recognition technology and health information systems. She is a co-developer of two "privacy friendly" software programs – Adnostic, a Firefox browser extension designed to enable ad targeting without third-party online tracking, and TrackMeNot, a Firefox browser extension designed to protect web-search against identification, surveillance, and profiling. Matthew L. Jones is an Associate Professor at Columbia University specializing in the history of science and technology, focused on early modern Europe and on recent information technologies. He is currently researching Data Mining: The Critique of Artificial Reason, 1963-2005, a historical and ethnographic account of "big data," its relation to statistics and machine learning, and its growth as a fundamental new form of technical expertise in business and scientific research. This event is co-hosted by the Center for Science, Technology and Society of Drexel University and the Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science.