[liberationtech] CfP: Big Data & Privacy: Making Ends Meet

[Yosem Companys]

From: Omer Tene <tene.omer at gmail.com>

Solutions to many pressing economic and societal challenges lie in better understanding data. New tools for analyzing disparate information sets, called Big Data, have revolutionized our ability to find signals amongst the noise. Big Data techniques hold promise for breakthroughs ranging from better health care, a cleaner environment, safer cities, and more effective marketing. Yet, privacy advocates are concerned that the same advances will upend the power relationships between government, business and individuals, and lead to prosecutorial abuse, racial or other profiling, discrimination, redlining, overcriminalization, and other restricted freedoms.

The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society (CIS) invite authors to submit papers discussing the legal, technological, social, and policy implications of Big Data. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the Stanford Law Review Online and presented at an FPF/CIS workshop, which will take place in Washington, DC, on September 10, 2013.

Submissions should be in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 words, with minimal footnotes (no more than 20, and no endnotes) and in a highly readable style accessible to a wide audience (see previously published Essays on SLR Online for examples). All citations should be in Bluebook format. Successful submissions may address the following questions: Does Big Data present new challenges or is it simply the latest incarnation of the data regulation debate? Does Big Data create fundamentally novel opportunities that civil liberties concerns need to accommodate? Can de-identification sufficiently minimize privacy risks? What roles should fundamental data privacy concepts such as consent, context, and data minimization play in a Big Data world? What lessons can be applied from other fields?

Please send submissions no later than June 30 to: papersubmissions at futureofprivacy.org. 
Publication decisions and workshop invitations will be sent in August.