Assignments

Law/regulation presentation

You will pick one of the current or proposed data protection laws or regulations listed on the Resources page (except for the GDPR) to present to the rest of the class. See the Canvas discussion post to sign up on a first-come, first-served basis. If there is another relevant regulation that is not listed but that you want to present, please contact the course instructor to get approval.

The presentation dates will be February 3 and 8. The presentation (~15 minutes) should address the following:

  • What was the context of why this law or regulation was passed (e.g., in response to a data breach, political situation)?
  • What kinds of data does this law or regulation protect? Against whom does this law or regulation protect?
  • What technical mechanisms (e.g., access control) are specifically mentioned in the regulation or law? How open is the interpretation of what can be implemented?
  • What parties are involved in the protection (e.g., people, government, first/third private parties)?
  • Is there a geographic or demographic scope this regulation or law applies to?
  • How is enforcement applied (e.g., auditors, legal/court systems)?
  • If the law or regulation is currently implemented, have there been any well-known violations? What were the consequences (e.g., financial, reputational)?

In short, you should be familiar enough with the law or regulation to be able to answer such questions. (Note that many laws and regulations include other components that are not directly applicable to system design.)

Submit a copy of your presentation on the course Canvas page.

Paper readings and discussions

The majority of our meeting times will be spent discussing recent research papers related to data protection by design. Be prepared to read a lot of research papers!

Prior to each meeting, you will be responsible for reviewing the papers and submitting your comments through the course’s Perusall page. You will also be responsible for leading the presentation and discussion of several of the papers.

Discussion leader sign-up

For papers that you want to lead the presentation and discussion, signing up will be on a first-come, first-served basis. (Link to paper sign-up form posted on Canvas in an announcement.) If you have not selected a paper by the sign-up deadline, you will be assigned one of the remaining papers at random.

Discussion participation

For each paper that we read, it is expected that you add your own comments and discussion questions on Perusall to help facilitate class discussion. Your comments and questions will constitute a substantial portion of the final grade, and it is expected that you participate for every paper.

Some suggestions for good comments are ones that address the following:

  • Problems and challenges that the work addresses
  • Novelty of the research problem (i.e., why this is not just X method applied to Y domain/application)
  • Scope of the solution (e.g., too general, too narrow)
  • Shortcomings and limitations of the approaches or evaluation
  • Suggested alternative approaches that could have been taken
  • Unanswered questions that the paper’s discussion omitted
  • How this work relates to other works covered in the course

Please also include one or more discussion questions that can be brought up to the rest of the class.

To give enough time for the discussion leader to prepare the paper’s presentation and discussion, all comments be submitted on Perusall no later than 24 hours before the lecture day that the paper is presented.

Discussion leader

For each paper that you lead, it is expected that you will lead that day’s meeting.

This involves two parts:

  1. presenting a short (~10 minute) presentation over the key technical insights, methodologies, and contributions of the paper, as well as
  2. leading the class discussion.

For the presentation, note that there is no need to present every last detail of the paper (since everyone has already read it). However, if there are particularly salient points that you want to draw attention to or background context that you want to add, you are welcome to do so! The paper presentations are meant to show your ability to present the highlights and contributions of the paper, as well as to show your ability to analyze the paper for interesting insights beyond what is simply stated in the paper. In essence, it is a summary of what you think is important but should also be what you believe are interesting insights that we should take away from reading it.

If existing presentations exist for the paper that you present (e.g., the original author’s presentation), it is okay to borrow limited selections from the presentations so long as you properly attribute the work. Do not present the author’s presentation.

For the discussion, you should address key points based on the comments and questions that others have submitted. The discussions should not simply be one-sided (i.e., lecturing over what was submitted) but should involve calling on others, posing questions, and active participation.

Some questions may be more relevant or interesting to bring up to discuss, so it is okay to highlight those and to skip over others. It’s even more effective if you are able to group similar questions together, as that makes it easier to discuss when grouped.

Research project

The course involves a novel research project. You may work on the project alone or in groups of two. (Groups of two students require justification and are expected to complete additional work.) Projects that merely implement existing protocols or that attempt to solve problems that have existing, well-understood, and widely-accepted solutions will not be accepted.

Proposal

Proposals must be approved by the course instructor before the project is started. It is required to meet with the course instructor to discuss this and strongly encouraged to meet prior to the proposal deadline so that you have as much time as possible to work on the project and so that you can avoid having to revise/resubmit the proposal later.

Proposals should be 1–2 pages and include:

  • a set of project member(s),
  • answers to the following questions:
    • How does this problem relate to data protection?
    • What problem is this research trying to solve?
    • Why is this research problem important?
    • What is the novel insight compared to the current state of the art?
    • How should success be measured?
    • What is achievable within the course timeframe?
  • a proposed timeline, and
  • a set of deliverables (e.g., code)

Submit your proposal on the course Canvas page.

Related work should include an annotated bibliography of 10-15 works most closely related to the project’s research problem. It is okay if not all of the related work gets used in the final project — this exercise is meant as a way to think about what work exists and how to differentiate your project from it.

For each work, the annotated bibliography should include:

  • the work’s citation,
  • a summary of the problem, challenges, and methodology used, and
  • how it relates to your project.

Submit the related work assignment on the course Canvas page.

Status updates

There will be two status updates throughout the semester. Status updates should be 1–2 pages and include:

  • a summary of work completed up to this point,
  • remaining work to be completed, and
  • any potential roadblocks (and mitigation strategies)

Submit the status update assignments on the course Canvas page.

Final presentation

Final presentations (~15 minutes each) will be presented to the class near the end of the semester. More details will be announced later.

A suggested outline:

  • Overview of the project
  • What you did
  • Your most important findings
  • What you found interesting
  • Conclusions

Submit a copy of your project presentation on the course Canvas page.

Final report

Final reports will be submitted to the instructor during the final exam week. More details will be announced later.

The format will be a workshop-style paper (5-8 pages) using the 10 point, 2 column ACM or IEEE LaTeX template.

A suggested outline:

  • Introduction
  • Background and related work
  • Methodology (or implementation details)
  • Evaluation
  • Discussion (or future work)
  • Conclusions

Your report will be evaluated based on the following:

  • Insights: how well did you analyze and evaluate the problem? What did you learn from it?
  • Writing style, formatting, and detail: how well can the report be understood and followed by others?
  • Deliverables (code or data): can others understand or use the deliverables that you proposed?

Submit a copy of your project report and any deliverables on the course Canvas page.