Statement of Course Outcomes

Course Number: CS 578 / SOC 551

Course Name: Privacy in a Networked World

Course Coordinator: Antonio R. Nicolosi

Graduate or Undergraduate Equivalent: N/A

Catalog Description:

This course focuses on both the technical challenges of handling sensitive data and the policy and legal issues facing data subjects, data owners, and data users. This course is suitable for advanced undergraduate computer science majors, graduate students in computer science, and students in technology management or other majors with some computer science background. Course readings draw on a variety of sources, including both technical materials and the popular press. Student participation is encouraged, both in and out of the classroom (e.g., student presentations and email discussions). The course includes a privacy-related project.

Course Outcomes:

1. [foundations] Describe (at a high-level) a conceptual framework to reason about privacy and/or balance it against other values (e.g., W.Prosser's Privacy Torts, D.Solove's Taxonomy of Privacy, or H.Nissenbaum's  Contextual Integrity). (cys:privacy)
2. [threats] Describe examples of potential negative consequences resulting when a person's privacy is violated. (cys:privacy)
3. [trumps] Describe examples of countervailing benefits that may be claimed as (justifiable or not justifiable) reasons for violating one's privacy. (cys:privacy)
4. [practices] Describe the privacy concerns addressed by established privacy practices, such as the HEW Fair Information Principles, or the OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data. (cys:privacy)
5. [security] Aritculate the relationship between privacy and security. (cys:privacy)
   
6. [info-lifecycle] Explain the impact on privacy of technological enhancements in the gathering, aggregation, analysis, and dissemination of personal information. (cys:privacy, core:impact)
7. [net-threats] Describe technical expedients commonly used on the Web for the purpose of tracking (e.g., cookies, web-beacons/web-bugs, browser cache sniffing, cache cookies). (cys:privacy, cys:practice)
8. [id-anonym-pseudonym] Articulate the relative advantages and disadvantages of identification, anonymity, and pseudonymity. (cys:privacy)
9. [crypto] Explain how cryptography may help in protecting privacy; describe (at a high-level) the relevant crypto techniques, and discuss their limitations. (cys:privacy, cys:crypto)
10. [PETs] Describe various privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), and explain how factors like ease-of-use and consumer education may affect their effectiveness. (cys:privacy, core:impact)
11. [regulatory-measures] Articulate the benefits and limitations of the regulatory and self-regulatory approaches to protecting privacy. (cys:privacy)
12. [private-data-analysis] Explain what private data analysis is, describe relevant techniques (randomization, differential privacy, multi-party computation), and discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages in terms of data utility and individual privacy. (cys:privacy, core:discrete-math)
    
13. [sectorial-issues] Articulate some of the privacy issues that are specific to the healthcare, finance, and national security sectors. (cys:privacy)
14. [tech-assessment] Perform a critical evaluation of the privacy implications of a novel or existing technology. (cys:privacy, core:communication, core:impact)

(Each course outcome is followed in parentheses by the Program Outcome to which it relates.)