Navigating computer science research through waves of privacy concerns: discussions among computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University

Computer Science research and practice are raising growing privacy concerns among the public and government. Computer technology's increasing ability to capture, organize, interpret and share data about individuals raises questions about what privacy practices computer science researchers should adopt, if any. These issues are already very real in ongoing research projects in the School of Computer Science (SCS) at Carnegie Mellon University, from mining databases of individual transactions, to studying how people use the web, to mounting cameras in lounges, to building hallway robots that capture data about passers by, to building intelligent workstation assistants that learn user habits. This article introduces the nature of privacy concerns related to computer science research and explains potential benefits and risks (especially of abuse and misuse). Traditional methods for providing privacy assurances in research, such as Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), are examined, and innovative new approaches, such as privacy technology, are introduced.