Acquisti Gives Symposium for Installation of 14th President of the University of Michigan

Alessandro Acquisti, professor of information technology and public policy at the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), co-director of the CMU Center for Behavioral and Decision Research, and a Co-Principal Investigator of the Carnegie Mellon University Census Research Node, recently gave the invited inauguration symposium on the occasion of President Mark S. Schissel's installation as the 14th President of the University of Michigan on September 5. The topic was "Privacy and Identity in a Hyperconnected Society."  Personal privacy concerns are becoming more of an issue, especially when looking at areas such as education, commerce, social interactions, policing, national security, health, and social research to name a few. Acquisti talked about results from several studies and experiments addressing the behvioral economics of privacy in online social networks. There are many trade-offs that emerge from the protection or sharing of personal information, the inadequacy of "notice and consent" mechanisms for privacy protection . He also talked about in the near future, an augmented-reality world in which online and offline personal data will seamlessly blend.