The Taub Faculty of Computer Science Events and Talks

The surveillance economy, where tracking and collecting data on uses for the purpose of advertising and other actions, is central to much of the money-making enterprises of the modern technology ecosystem. Due to regulations and other forces, some of the largest companies, such as Google and Apple, have prioritized mechanisms for users to better manage and receive information about the kinds of data that is being collected about them. In this talk, I will explore how effective these mechanisms really are and ask the question, who are they really serving? I will present recent experiments we've performed on Google's data dashboards and their effectiveness, and also present ongoing work on Apple's app-based privacy nutrition labels, which describe apps functionality with relation to privacy. Bio: Adam J. Aviv is an Associate Professor (with tenure) in the Department of Computer Science at the George Washington University and is the director of the GW-Usable Security (GWUSEC) Lab. He is currently on sabbatical during the 2023/2024 academic year and is a visiting scholar in the international school and the department of industrial engineering at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Aviv has published over 80 peer reviewed papers in areas related to computer security, privacy, and applied cryptography. Currently, his primary academic interests lie at the intersection of human computer interaction (HCI) and computer security and privacy, as well as research in network security and applied cryptography. He has made significant contributions in the space of mobile authentication, studying how users choose passwords and PINs for their mobile devices. Prior to GW, he was a assistant professor at the United States Naval Academy and a visiting assistant professor at Swarthmore College. Dr. Aviv received his B.S.E from Columbia University in the City of New York and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a recipient of six NSF awards as a PI, including the prestigious NSF CAREER award.