February 9, 2022

New faculty associate Joe Lott

The Tech Policy Lab has welcomed a new faculty associate, Joe Lott.  Joe is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Washington. Joe is the co-founder and Faculty Director of the Brotherhood Initiative, which focuses on empowering undergraduate men of color in areas of leadership, wellness, innovation, and social entrepreneurship. […]

January 27, 2022

Co-Director highlights arising security threats with increased used of AR and the metaverse

VentureBeat

TPL Co-Director Tadayoshi Kohno and TPL Faculty Associate Franziska Roesner were featured in VentureBeat’s new piece on the metaverse with regards to their paper that calls into question the new immersive nature of AR. Forthcoming AR technologies “may explicitly interface with the body and brain, with sophisticated body-sensing and brain-machine interface technologies”, they said, and “the immersive […]

January 24, 2022

Co-Director named ACM Fellow for groundbreaking research

UW iSchool

TPL Co-Director Batya Friedman, as well as professors,  Jacob O. Wobbrock and  Anind K. Dey were highlighted as ACM Fellows this past week. Fellows are seen as the “1% of members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community”. The iSchool released an article detailing their individual research […]

January 20, 2022

Co-Director emphasizes lack of penalties on Facebook’s recent missteps

New York Times

From freezing accounts of Native people, to rejecting ads that were aimed at individuals with disabilities, Facebook has struggled with making equitable judgment calls with regards to free expression and speech. TPL Co-Director Ryan Calo pointed out that “most firms that make errors face critical penalties. Facebook hardly ever does.” Calo compared the actions of […]

January 19, 2022

Co-Director Calo on Driver Information Collected by Automakers

Newsweek

In Newsweek, Co-Director Calo highlighted that “Some [auto] companies have begun to experiment with your affect,” he explained. “Trying to figure out if you’re tired and beginning to close your eyes. Or you’re yawning. Where you’re actually looking. Are you looking at the street? Are you looking at the console?”. He prompted a discussion regarding privacy […]

January 11, 2022

Tech Policy Lab Releases Biennial Report

The Tech Policy Lab is please to share our 2020-2021 Biennial Report. Highlights include the Lab’s work on privacy and COVID, mitigating bias in AI systems, using storytelling to explain tech policy, and technology’s relationship to food security. http://techpolicylab.uw.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Tech-Policy-Biennial-Report-2021-Final.pdf

December 18, 2021

TPL Co-Directors Named to Faculty Under 50 List and Featured in NYTimes Magazine on how COVID-19 Relief is Funding the Future

New York Times Magazine

Co-Director Ryan Calo was highlighted in Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports as a Faculty under 50 on the “most cited” list. Calo was also featured in the New York Times Magazine on how Covid-19 relief is funding the future.  

December 10, 2021

Data Statements highlighted in SpeechTechMag

Speech Technology Magazine

Co-Director and Professor Batya Friedman along with Faculty Associate and Professor Emily M. Bender’s recent paper titled “Data Statements for Natural Language Processing: Toward Mitigating System Bias and Enabling Better Science,” was highlighted in a natural language processing article by SpeechTechMag. It discussed AI in facial recognition systems and how data statements are key in understanding why […]

November 9, 2021

Two Co-Directors Look Back at the 2020 Election: Data Collection, Privacy, and Misinformation

Various

As 2021 came to a close, a few pieces took a look back about what had been learned about data collection, privacy, and misinformation in the 2020 campaign. An article on the 2020 political ads looking at personal information collected and misleading information featured TPL Co-Director Tadayoshi Kohno, who highlighted the election as a historic […]

November 2, 2021

Co-Director featured in The Verge surrounding privacy and future societal implications of technology

The Verge

Co-Director Batya Friedman identifies the need for adaptability when creating technology to address its unforeseen environmental, social, and technical impacts in The Next Privacy Crisis  by Adi Robertson. “It’s very typical that developers of a technology have one kind of idea about what its uptake in society might be, and then the actual uptake turns out […]