Acquisti Studies Social Network Privacy Issues

Alessandro Acquisti, Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Public Policy, has been invited to participate in a study of privacy issues in online social networks by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA).  The result of the study will be a position paper on Social Networking, to be published in October 2007. “The aim is to benefit both users and providers of social media by encouraging a safer environment on Social Networking sites” says Andrea Pirotti, ENISA’s Executive Director.

Heinz School Professor Acquisti is a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), a member of the CMU Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory, a member of CMU Privacy Technology Center, and a partner at Carnegie Mellon CyLab. His research interests lie at the overlap of information technology, society, and economics. They include the economics of privacy and information security, the economics of computers and AI, agents economics, computational economics, ecommerce, cryptography, anonymity, and electronic voting.

Acquisti is the recipient of national and international awards, including the 2005 PET Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies and the 2005 IBM Best Academic Privacy Faculty Award. He has been invited to give plenary and keynote speeches at international events such as ETRICS and the Annual CACR Privacy and Security Workshop. He is or has been a member of the program committees of various international conferences and workshops, including ACM EC, PET, WEIS, Financial Cryptography, and WPES.