About PAL
As information technologies increasingly expand the ability for organizations to store, process, and exploit personal data, privacy is at the center of discussion and controversy among multiple stakeholders including IT professionals, business leaders, privacy activists, and government regulators. Public opinion polls have repeatedly shown privacy to be of utmost concern in diverse organizational and societal contexts. Researchers at the Privacy Assurance Laboratory (PAL) aims to bring together the inter-disciplinary research on a diverse set of topics related to understanding and assuring information privacy. PAL research seeks to better understand the dynamic and dialectic nature of information privacy through a combination of theoretical, technical and empirical research efforts. Moreover, the interplay between social and technological issues associated with the privacy assurance will be the subject of a number of educational initiatives for Penn State's new major in Security and Risk Analysis.
Download the PAL brochure (Adobe Reader required).
News and Events
April 2011: Dr. Heng Xu discussed online privacy issues in Penn State President Graham Spanier's monthly call-in program 'To the Best of My Knowledge' on WPSU TV on April 19, 2011. View the Podcast here.
March 2011: Dr. Heng Xu was invited to speak at the Cyber-Security Research Forum organized by the Computing and Security Technology (CST) Program at Drexel University.
January 2011: Dr. Heng Xu was invited to speak at the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law Symposium on "Privacy as an Instrument of Social Change".
December 2010: Dr. Heng Xu was interviewed by John Munson to discuss online and smartphone privacy issues on 12/21. The interview was part of the Kathleen Dunn show that airs on Wisconsin Public Radio, the second largest public radio network in the country broadcasting into five states.
December 2010: Dr. Heng Xu shared her opinions on smartphone privacy issues with Jennifer Valentino-DeVries in a recent The Wall Street Journal online article.
People
Faculty
Students
- Michael Albertson, IST Undergraduate student
- Rong Chen, IST PhD student
- Ying Chen, CSE PhD student
- Justin Cheung, IST Undergraduate student
- Bradley Dellinger, IST Undergraduate student
- Amanda R. Melchiore, IST Undergraduate student
- Rachida Parks, IST PhD student
- Pan Shi, IST PhD student
- Na Wang, IST PhD student
- Saijing Zheng, IST PhD student
Alumni
- Natasha Barnes, BS graduate, now at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
- Nazneen Irani, MSc graduate, now at Deloitte
- Peijian Song, PhD graduate, now an assistant professor at Nanjing University, China
Research Grants
- Xu, H. (PI), "CAREER: Examining Users' Collective Privacy Management for Online Social Networks," NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, National Science Foundation ($478,606), 2010-2015.
- Xu, H. (PI), Carroll, J. M. (Co-PI), Rosson, M. B. (Co-PI), and Perkins, D. F.(Co-PI) "MySpace Generation's Online Safety: Adolescent Attitude and Behavior, Parental Mediation, and Educational Intervention ," National Science Foundation ($499,945), 2010-2013.
- Reddy, M. (PI), and Xu, H. (Co-PI), "Collaborative Privacy Practices: Exploring Privacy in Information Intensive Environments," National Science Foundation ($499,981), 2010-2013.
- Xu, H. (PI), Bagby, W. J. (Co-PI), and Maitland, C. (Co-PI) "Seed Grant: Regulating Privacy in Wireless Advertising Messaging (WAM): FIPP Compliance by Policy vs. by Design," College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University ($5,725), 2010-2011.
- Squicciarini, A. (PI), and Xu, H. (Co-PI) "Seed Grant: Users' Controllable Privacy in Social Computing," College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University ($5,725), 2010-2011.
- Xu, H. (PI), Zhu, S. (Co-PI), and Perkins, D. (Co-PI) "Seed Grant: 'MySpace' Generation's Online Safety: Integrating Social, Legal and Technical Perspectives," College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University ($8,500), 2009-2010.
- Xu, H. (PI), Zhu, S. (Co-PI), and Perkins, D. (Co-PI) "Protecting Children's Online Privacy: a Value Sensitive Design Investigation," Children, Youth and Family Consortium, Penn State University (total: $12,094), 2008-2009.
- Xu, H. (PI), Rosson, M. B. (Co-PI), and Carroll, J. M. (Co-PI) "Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Supplement for the CT-ER Project on Privacy Assurance in Location-Based Services," National Science Foundation (total: $6,000), 2008-2009.
- Xu, H. (PI), Rosson, M. B. (Co-PI), and Carroll, J. M. (Co-PI) "CT-ER: Privacy Assurance in Location-Based Services: Integrating Economic Exchange and Social Justice Perspectives," National Science Foundation (total: $168,777), 2007-2009.
- Chu, C. H. (PI), Liu, P. (Co-PI), and Xu, H. (Co-PI) "IA Scholarship and Capacity Building Program (Privacy Assurance Lab)," DoD Information Assurance Scholarship Program (total: $175,576), 2007-2008.
Current Projects and Publications
- Conceptual Underpinnings of Information Privacy publications»
- Privacy by Design publications»
- Privacy Concerns Pertaining to Location-Based Services (LBS) publications»
- Web 2.0 Privacy publications»
- Privacy and Healthcare IT publications»
- Privacy Protection for RFID Data and Wireless Applications publications»
Resources
Conferences:
Research:
Professional Organization:
Join Us!
For Penn State students or faculty members doing privacy related
research: if you would like to be included on PAL web site, please
contact Dr. Heng Xu.
For current and prospective Penn State students: if you are
interested in one of the following research areas, please send your
resume to Dr. Heng Xu:
1. Development and evaluation of privacy enhancing technologies.
Privacy Assurance Lab is looking for students to work on
research projects with us (for independent study or thesis credit or
pay). We are particularly interested in students who have solid
experiences in Windows programming as well as students with experience
conducting user studies.
2. Usable IT Security Management. We are looking for one
PhD student with the background in IST, management and organization,
MIS, or marketing.
3. Social, psychological and cultural views of information
privacy. We are looking for one PhD student with the
background in IST, psychology, communication or MIS.