Privacy, theory

Plausibly deniable encryption is the ability to hide that given data is on a device, whether the ability exists to decrypt it, or even that the data exists. Plausible deniability is a powerful property to protect data on devices the user has lost physical control over, such as protecting consumers from accidental mass disclosures of private data through misplaced devices. This issue is of particular concern for anyone who travels internationally with sensitive data, including human rights workers, diplomats, military personnel, or even business travelers.

This project aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice in privacy-preserving data sharing and analysis. Data collected by organizations and agencies are a key resource in today's information age. However, the disclosure of those data poses serious threats to individual privacy. While differential privacy provides a solid foundation for developing techniques to balance privacy and utility in data sharing, currently there is a significant gap between theory and practice in research in this area.

This project aims at developing efficient methods for protecting the privacy of computations on outsourced data in distributed settings. The project addresses the design of an outsourced storage framework where the access pattern observed by the storage server gives no information about the actual data accessed by the client and cannot be correlated with external events. For example, the server cannot determine whether a certain item was previously accessed by the client or whether a certain algorithm is being executed.

The collection and analysis of personal data about individuals has revolutionized information systems and fueled US and global economies. But privacy concerns regarding the use of such data loom large. Differential privacy has emerged as a gold standard for mathematically characterizing the privacy risks of algorithms using personal data. Yet, adoption of differentially private algorithms in industry or government agencies has been startlingly rare.