PAL: Privacy-Enhancing Artificial Intelligence and Language Technologies
March 25-27, 2019
Stanford University - Palo Alto, California

This AAAI Spring Symposium will bring together researchers in privacy and researchers in either artificial intelligence (AI) or human language technologies (HLTs), so that we may collectively assess the state of the art in this growing intersection of interests. Privacy remains an evolving and nuanced concern of computer users, as new technologies that use the web, smartphones, and the internet of things (IoT) collect a myriad of personal information. Rather than viewing AI and HLT as problems for privacy, the goal of this symposium is to “flip the script” and explore how AI and HLT can help meet users’ desires for privacy when interacting with computers.

We will focus on two loosely-defined research questions:

(1) How can AI and HLT preserve or protect privacy in challenging situations?
(2) How can AI and HLT help interested parties (e.g., computer users, companies, regulatory agencies) understand privacy in the status quo and what people want?

The symposium will consist of invited speakers, oral presentations of submitted papers, a poster session, and panel discussions. This event is a successor to Privacy and Language Technologies (“PLT”), a 2016 AAAI Fall Symposium.

The symposium invites 2-6 page papers (excluding references) describing new contributions, works in progress, and positions on research in the intersection between privacy and AI/HLT. Submissions should be anonymized. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

- AI/HLT-driven personalization of privacy assistance
- Uses of AI/HLT to enhance privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs)
- AI/HLT-assisted privacy of online social media users
- AI/HLT-driven simplification or summarization of privacy policies
- AI/HLT analysis of privacy regulations
- Privacy-preserving methods of data mining and text mining
- Ontologies and knowledge bases for privacy
- User studies of AI/HLT-driven systems that support privacy
- Ethical ramifications of AI/HLT in support of privacy

The symposium will welcome submissions from researchers who consider any combination of artificial intelligence, human language technologies, or privacy to be their primary area, recognizing that all are becoming inter-dependent.

Submissions should be in AAAI format. The review process will be double-blind, and accepted papers will be permitted up to one additional page in their final manuscripts. Proceedings will appear on CEUR-WS.org.

Important Dates:
November 2, 2018: Submission deadline (11:59pm Hawaii time)
December 3, 2018: Acceptance/rejection notification
February 8, 2019: Registration deadline for invited participants
February 22, 2019: Camera-ready deadline
March 1, 2019: Final registration deadline
March 25-27, 2019: Symposium

Organizers:
Shomir Wilson (Lead Organizer) (Pennsylvania State University)
Sepideh Ghanavati (Co-Organizer) (University of Maine)
Kambiz Ghazinour (Co-Organizer) (Kent State University)
Norman Sadeh (Co-Organizer) (Carnegie Mellon University)

Program Committee:
Denilson Barbosa (University of Alberta)
Ken Barker (University of Calgary)
Michael Carl (Copenhagen Business School)
Huan Liu (Arizona State University)
Xiapu Luo (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
Amir Masoumzadeh (SUNY Albany)
Julia Taylor (Purdue University)
Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan (Wright State University)
Yaxing Yao (Syracuse University)
Varun Chandola (SUNY Buffalo)
Pauline Anthonysamy (Google)
Valerio Basile (University of Torino, Italy)
Archna Bhatia (IHMC)
Mitra Bokaei Hosseini (University of Texas at San Antonio)
Luigi di Caro (University of Turin)
Tim Finin (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Mark Finlayson (Florida International University)
Loni Hagen (University of South Florida)
Priya Kumar (University of Maryland)
Livio Robaldo (University of Luxembourg)
Hui Wang (Stevens Institute of Technology)
Sicong Zhang (Georgetown University)
Lina Zhou (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Jose M Such (King's College London)
Sebastian Zimmeck (Wesleyan University)
Travis Breaux (Carnegie Mellon University)
Frederick Liu (Snap)
Kanthashree Sathyendra (Amazon)
Florian Schaub (University of Michigan)
Patricia Thaine (University of Toronto)
Sai Teja Peddinti (Google)
Patrick Kelley (Google)
Jaspreet Bhatia (Carnegie Mellon University)