Grand Challenge: Security, Privacy, and Safety

The Allen School has announced a set of six grand challenges for the future of computer science, including this one:

How do we anticipate and address security, privacy, and safety issues as technologies permeate society?

As technology permeates every aspect of our lives and societies, it has the potential to fundamentally change many things for the better. But realizing the potential benefits also requires sustained, thoughtful focus on the security, privacy, and safety risks that may and do arise from new technologies and their applications in new contexts. Anticipating, uncovering, documenting, mitigating, and avoiding such risks is an inter-disciplinary endeavor, requiring advances in technology, theory, design, law and policy — as well as in our understanding of how individuals and communities relate to technology. We bring together researchers and educators across the Allen School and the University of Washington whose work aims to lead us towards a safer, more secure, and more privacy-preserving future through technologies that ultimately better serve people and society.

Needless to say, we agree with the importance of this Grand Challenge! Read more here about the challenge and see all the great Allen School faculty involved in addressing this challenge, from the Security and Privacy Research Lab and beyond.