In conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER) - https://conf.researchr.org/home/saner-2024

PROCEEDINGS: The workshop proceedings will be included as a separate section of the proceedings of SANER.

**ORGANIZERS**

Nicolás Díaz Ferreyra - Hamburg University of Technology, Germany.
Zadia Codabux - University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Melina Vidoni - Australian National University, Australia.

**WORKSHOP THEME AND GOALS**

Privacy and Security (P&S) are multifaceted and complex research areas spanning across different knowledge domains (e.g., engineering, law, and psychology). Challenges in P&S cannot be solely addressed from a single discipline as they often involve human factors, technological artefacts, and regulatory/legal frameworks. Particularly, the quest for P&S solutions requires in-deep knowledge and actionable information about its users/stakeholders, vulnerabilities/flaws, and potential attackers.

Mining Software Repositories (MSR) techniques can support this quest by providing means to understand the P&S dimensions of information systems, thus help shaping privacy- and security-friendly software. This workshop aims to explore the application of MSR at the different stages of P&S engineering.

**TOPICS OF INTEREST**

- MSR applications for security risk assessment
- MSR applications for privacy requirements engineering
- MSR applications for security vulnerabilities detection
- Engineering PETs through MSR methodologies
- Privacy-Enhancing Technologies through MSR
- MSR-based research for safety/security by design
- Privacy-friendly MSRs (including mixed-methods)
- MSR-based mixed-methods on P&S research
- Privacy requirements in MSR-based research
- Integrating MSRs into P&S research (empirical)
- Analysis of repositories to mine for P&S research
- Tools supporting MSR-based research for P&S
- Datasets used for MSR-based research for P&S
- MSR applications to P&S assurance

**SPECIAL TOPICS OF INTEREST**

Any paper within the scope of the workshop will be considered. Additionally, this year we especially welcome submissions elaborating on MSR applications for the security and privacy assessment of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models (e.g., GPT-3 and GitHub Copilot) and their impact on modern software engineering processes.

**SUBMISSION DETAILS**

Submitted papers must have been neither previously accepted for publication nor concurrently submitted for review in another journal, book, conference, or workshop. All submissions must come in PDF format and conform, at the time of submission, to the IEEE Conference Proceedings Formatting Guidelines: title in 24pt font and full text in 10pt font, LaTEX users must use \textit{$\backslash$documentclass[10pt,conference]{IEEEtran}} without including the \textit{compsoc} or \textit{compsocconf} option. Also, papers must comply with the IEEE Policy on Authorship. All submissions must be in English.

**PAPER TYPES AND LENGTHS**

(I) Regular Papers: up to 8 pages, including references. It must describe original contributions in research and/or practice. Although they can be work-in-progress, the authors must present a clear path forward. These will be given a 15-minute presentation during the workshop.

(II) Short Papers: up to 4 pages, including references. It welcomes position papers, experience reports, work-in-progress, new trends papers, industrial reports, datasets and tools. These will be given a 7-minutes presentation during the workshop.

The workshop will follow a double-anonymous peer review process in alignment with SANER's Review Process policies. This means that the papers submitted must not reveal the authors’ identities in any way, omitting the names from the submission and referring to self-citations in the third person. The only exception will be dataset and tools papers, which will employ an optional single-anonymous review process.

All submitted papers will be reviewed regarding technical quality, relevance, significance, and clarity by the program committee. All workshop papers should be submitted electronically in PDF format through the workshop website. Accepted papers will become part of the workshop proceedings.

**IMPORTANT DATES**

Submission Deadline: December 13, 2023 (AoE)

Notification: January 8, 2024

Camera-ready: January 12, 2024

Submission Link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=msr4ps2024