Legal Landmines: How Law and Policy are Rapidly Shaping Information Security

The conference presentation discusses the challenges companies face in balancing government pressure to delete unnecessary data for privacy protection with the need for algorithmic transparency and fairness. The speaker suggests creating a crowdsource market for algorithmic auditing practices to remove barriers and allow experts to uncover issues in machine learning algorithms.

• Companies face pressure from governments to delete unnecessary data for privacy protection while also ensuring algorithmic transparency and fairness
• Creating a crowdsource market for algorithmic auditing practices can help remove barriers and allow experts to uncover issues in machine learning algorithms
• Bug bounties are important but companies need to pay careful attention to how they scope technical scope, third party rights, and authorization
• Machine learning is not ready for important use and has serious problems with racial and gender discrimination

The ACLU tested Amazon's facial recognition technology and found that it disproportionately misidentified people of color as criminals in the mug shot database. Similar machine learning algorithms are already being used to set bail, sentencing, and housing and job opportunities, which could also be racially or gender discriminatory.

The Internet was a much different place 25 years ago. Technology, and the free flow of information has rapidly changed the world forever. Along with that change came the frightening prospect of losing all of our privacy, attacks on our critical infrastructure, election tampering, invasive ad targeting, and the general paranoia that comes with knowing that no technology is safe. The law, regulatory bodies, and government policy has struggled to keep up with this change, but times are changing. In recent years, we have seen the legal community at the front of some of the most important battles regarding information security. The legal communities impact on information security is growing every year. This panel brings together some of those insightful and forward thinking minds to discuss some of the emerging legal trends in security that will impact all of us tomorrow.