Daniel Weitzner

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Daniel Weitzner
Weitzner-2002-crop.png
Education Swarthmore College (BA)
University at Buffalo (JD)

Daniel J. Weitzner is the director of the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative and principal research scientist at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab CSAIL. He teaches Internet public policy in MIT's Computer Science Department. His research includes development of accountable systems architectures to enable the Web to be more responsive to policy requirements.

Contents

Online privacy

Weitzner is an expert in online privacy who has had significant impact in the field. He served as the Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States from 2011 to 2012, where he focused on Internet policy and privacy. [1] During his tenure as a White House technology official, he oversaw a consumer privacy initiative [2] and was primarily responsible [3] for the creation of the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights [4] and the OECD Internet Policymaking Principles [5]

Weitzner and several colleagues wrote the Information Accountability paper, which proposed an alternative approach to information policy where individuals and institutions determine for themselves the way information about them is used lawfully and appropriately by others. [6]

Weitzner co-directs the Decentralized Information Group Tim Berners-Lee and is heading a new, cross-MIT research initiative: MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative funded by the Hewlett Foundation. [7] He facilitated discussions and workshops on technology issues such as artificial intelligence (AI) [8] and encryption. [9]

Weitzner's background in the area of privacy and policy includes his work as a founder of the Center for Democracy and Technology [10] and a stint as the Deputy Policy Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He is also Founding member, [11] Director and Trustee of the Web Science Trust.

Education

Weitzner has a law degree from University at Buffalo Law School and a B.A. in Philosophy from Swarthmore College. His writings have appeared in Science magazine, [12] Yale Law Review, Communications of the ACM [13] [14] the Washington Post, Wired Magazine and Social Research.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Semantic Web</span> Extension of the Web to facilitate data exchange

The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Berners-Lee</span> English computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web (born 1955)

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow at the University of Oxford and a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is an independent nonprofit research center established in 1994 to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values in the information age. EPIC is based in Washington, D.C. EPIC's mission is to secure the fundamental right to privacy in the digital age for all people through advocacy, research, and litigation.

Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the internet for purposes of well-intent, while at the same time reducing its potential for harm. It advocates for transparency, accountability, and limiting the collection of personal information.

Technology governance means the governance, i.e., the steering between the different sectors—state, business, and NGOs—of the development of technology. It is the idea of governance within technology and its use, as well as the practices behind them. The concept is based on the notion of innovation and of techno-economic paradigm shifts according to the theories by scholars such as Joseph A. Schumpeter, Christopher Freeman, and Carlota Perez.

A privacy policy is a statement or legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data. Personal information can be anything that can be used to identify an individual, not limited to the person's name, address, date of birth, marital status, contact information, ID issue, and expiry date, financial records, credit information, medical history, where one travels, and intentions to acquire goods and services. In the case of a business, it is often a statement that declares a party's policy on how it collects, stores, and releases personal information it collects. It informs the client what specific information is collected, and whether it is kept confidential, shared with partners, or sold to other firms or enterprises. Privacy policies typically represent a broader, more generalized treatment, as opposed to data use statements, which tend to be more detailed and specific.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Hendler</span> AI researcher

James Alexander Hendler is an artificial intelligence researcher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, United States, and one of the originators of the Semantic Web. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Kotok</span> American computer scientist

Alan Kotok was an American computer scientist known for his work at Digital Equipment Corporation and at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Steven Levy, in his book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, describes Kotok and his classmates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as the first true hackers.

Semantic publishing on the Web, or semantic web publishing, refers to publishing information on the web as documents accompanied by semantic markup. Semantic publication provides a way for computers to understand the structure and even the meaning of the published information, making information search and data integration more efficient.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web Science Trust</span> UK Charitable Trust

The Web Science Trust (WST) is a UK Charitable Trust with the aim of supporting the global development of Web science. It was originally started in 2006 as a joint effort between MIT and University of Southampton to formalise the social and technical aspects of the World Wide Web. The trust coordinates a set of international "WSTNet Laboratories" that include academic research groups in the emerging area of Web science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web science</span> Emerging interdisciplinary field

Web science is an emerging interdisciplinary field concerned with the study of large-scale socio-technical systems, particularly the World Wide Web. It considers the relationship between people and technology, the ways that society and technology co-constitute one another and the impact of this co-constitution on broader society. Web Science combines research from disciplines as diverse as sociology, computer science, economics, and mathematics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Rotenberg</span>

Marc Rotenberg is president and founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, an independent non-profit organization, incorporated in Washington, D.C. Rotenberg is the editor of The AI Policy Sourcebook, a member of the OECD Expert Group on AI, and helped draft the Universal Guidelines for AI. He teaches the GDPR and privacy law at Georgetown Law and is coauthor of Privacy Law and Society and The Privacy Law Sourcebook (2020). Rotenberg is a founding board member and former chair of the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .ORG domain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Hall</span> British computer scientist

Dame Wendy Hall is a British computer scientist. She is Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nigel Shadbolt</span> Principal of Jesus College, Oxford

Sir Nigel Richard Shadbolt is Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. He is chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded with Tim Berners-Lee. He is also a visiting professor in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Shadbolt is an interdisciplinary researcher, policy expert and commentator. His research focuses on understanding how intelligent behaviour is embodied and emerges in humans, machines and, most recently, on the Web, and has made contributions to the fields of Psychology, Cognitive science, Computational neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer science and the emerging field of Web science.

Knowledge retrieval seeks to return information in a structured form, consistent with human cognitive processes as opposed to simple lists of data items. It draws on a range of fields including epistemology, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, logic and inference, machine learning and knowledge discovery, linguistics, and information technology.

Kieron O'Hara is a philosopher, computer scientist and political writer. He is an associate professor and principal research fellow within the department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton where he specialises in the politics, philosophy and epistemology of technology. He is also a research fellow at the Web Science Trust and the conservative think-tank, the Centre for Policy Studies.

The United States Commission's fair information practice principles (FIPPs) are guidelines that represent widely accepted concepts concerning fair information practice in an electronic marketplace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social machine</span>

A social machine is an environment comprising humans and technology interacting and producing outputs or action which would not be possible without both parties present. It can also be regarded as a machine, in which specific tasks are performed by human participants, whose interaction is mediated by an infrastructure. The growth of social machines has been greatly enabled by technologies such as the Internet, the smartphone, social media and the World Wide Web, by connecting people in new ways.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solid (web decentralization project)</span> Open-source platform aimed at applying peer-to-peer to data privacy

Solid is a web decentralization project led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, originally developed collaboratively at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The project "aims to radically change the way Web applications work today, resulting in true data ownership as well as improved privacy" by developing a platform for linked-data applications that are completely decentralized and fully under users' control rather than controlled by other entities. The ultimate goal of Solid is to allow users to have full control of their own data, including access control and storage location. To that end, Tim Berners-Lee formed a company called Inrupt to help build a commercial ecosystem to fuel Solid.

References

  1. "Daniel Weitzner is the new White House deputy CTO for Internet policy". govfresh.com.
  2. Singer, Natasha (2016-02-28). "Why a Push for Online Privacy Is Bogged Down in Washington". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  3. "We Can't Wait: Obama Administration Calls for A Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights for the Digital Age". whitehouse.gov via National Archives.
  4. Consumer Data Privacy in a networked world: A framework for protecting privacy and promoting innovation in the global Digital Economy, White House, February, 2012
  5. OECD Council Recommendation on Principles for Internet Policy Making, OECD, 13 December 2011
  6. Guagnin, Daniel; Hempel, Leon; Ilten, Carla; Kroener, Inga; Neyland, Daniel; Postigo, Hector (2012). Managing Privacy Through Accountability. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 39. ISBN   9780230369320.
  7. "MIT launches a trio of new cybersecurity initiatives". betaboston.com.
  8. Dizikes, Peter (January 18, 2019). "AI, the law, and our future". MIT News. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  9. Savage, Charlie (2018-03-24). "Justice Dept. Revives Push to Mandate a Way to Unlock Phones". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  10. "Danny Weitzner - Center for Democracy & Technology". cdt.org.
  11. Lohr, Steve (November 2, 2006). "Group of University Researchers to Make Web Science a Field of Study". The New York Times. Retrieved December 19, 2016.
  12. Berners-Lee, Tim; Hall, W.; Hendler, J.; Shadbolt, N.; Weitzner, D. (2006). "Creating a Science of the Web". Science. 313 (5788): 769–771. doi:10.1126/science.1126902. PMID   16902115. S2CID   5104030.
  13. D. Weitzner, H. Abelson, T. Berners-Lee, J. Feigenbaum, J. Hendler and G. Sussman, Information Accountability, Communications of the ACM, June, 2008.
  14. James Hendler, Nigel Shadbolt, Wendy Hall, Tim Berners-Lee, Daniel Weitzner, Web Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Web, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 51 No. 7, Pages 60-69