FTC Announces Second PrivacyCon; Publishes Call For Presentations

Following on the success of its first PrivacyCon event, the Federal Trade Commission has announced the second edition of the research conference will take place Jan. 12, 2017, and has published a call for presentations.

PrivacyCon is designed to continue and expand collaboration among leading whitehat researchers, academics, industry representatives, consumer advocates and the government to address the privacy and security implications of emerging technologies.

“We are eager to build on the tremendous success of our first PrivacyCon and spur more research on key issues relating to consumer privacy and data security,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez.  “Bringing together leading thinkers and new voices from the academic, tech, and policy arenas is crucial as we seek to better address the challenges in protecting consumer privacy.”

The call for presentations asks a number of specific questions to stimulate further research. In addition to expanding upon the previous research presented, the FTC hopes to explore areas that it was not able to focus on at this year’s event, such as:

• the harms caused by privacy violations;
• attack vectors and trends by which attackers may compromise privacy;
• how often consumers are using ad blocker tools, and;
• the costs of malware to consumers and businesses.

The first PrivacyCon, held in January 2016, had more than 300 participants in person and more than 1,500 online, and featured 19 presentations from researchers from around the U.S. and the world.

Submissions for PrivacyCon must be made by Oct. 3, 2016.

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