[Air-L] The Data Transparency Lab Grants - Call for Proposals

Thu Apr 14 00:40:55 PDT 2016

CALL FOR PROPOSALS 2016

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The Data Transparency Lab Grants Program 2016

http://wwww.datatransparencylab.org

DTL2016 CONFERENCE:

November 17-19, 2016

Columbia University, New York City.
http://dtlconferences.org/

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The Data Transparency Lab is a collaborative effort between universities,
businesses and institutions to support research in tools, data, and
methodologies for shedding light on the use of personal data by online
services, and to empower users to be in control of their personal data
online. In order to support research in these areas, DTL will award 6-8
research grants to academic institutions worldwide. Such grants come in
the form of a gross amount sum of 50,000 Euro that will awarded to
successful applicants for pursuing research that will lead to the
development of software tools for the following topics:

I. Privacy-related topics:

        ‹ Detection with quantification and attribution of tracking,
including
advanced finger-printing methods

        ‹ Detection with quantification and attribution of Personally
Identifiable Information (PII) leakage

        ‹ Detection with quantification and attribution of online behavioral
targeting on advertising, search, recommendation, etc.

        ‹ Detection with quantification and attribution of location tracking

        ‹ Detection with quantification and attribution of cross
device/platform
tracking

        ‹ Software for comparing objectively the privacy leakage or
transparency-related outcomes of other tools developed in the context of
DTL or independently

II. Reverse engineering efforts for transparency:

        ‹ Reverse engineering advertisement placement, recommendation, etc.

        ‹ Reverse engineering online pricing (e-commerce, spot/surge
pricing for
cloud, transportation, accommodation and other services)

        ‹  Transparent-by-design ways to using data that protects privacy

        ‹ HCI challenges in demonstrating transparency/privacy results to
users

III. Discrimination-related topics:

        ‹ Detection of geoblocking in e-commerce, content distribution
service,
etc.

        ‹ Impact of algorithmic personalization, algorithmic discrimination,
personal filter-bubbles, & societal polarization, etc

The grants are aimed towards supporting fully or partly the work of a
Principal Investigator (PI) and at least one PhD student or postdoc for a
time duration of approximately a year.

Proposal:

Submitted proposal need to clearly describe:

        ‹ What will the produced software tool do?

        ‹ Who will benefit from using it (end user, regulators, data
protection
authorities, privacy / anti-discrimination activists)?

        ‹ What is the intended plan for recruiting users?

        ‹ What is the novelty & technical excellence of the proposal?

        ‹ Justify the technical expertise of the applicants in the area.

Successful applicants are expected to present their results in the annual
DTL Conference (DTL2016, Nov. 17-19, Columbia University); make their
software available online (by the end of 12 months counting from the
reception of the grant, at the latest), and; acknowledge the funding
source. Reporting obligations will be minimal and successful applicants
will be eligible to apply for additional follow up funding to further
curate their tool.

A list of awardees will be made public on DTL websites and the Principal
PI will receive notification through the email address declared in the
proposal. Note: If awarded a grant, a project abstract/overview proposal
may be published on DTL websites, unless applicants request the contrary.
Program Committee

The following committee of experts will evaluate applications:

Research Committee Chairs

Balachander Krishnamurthy, AT&T Labs -- Research
Nikolaos Laoutaris, Telefonica Research

Committee Members

Ernst Biersack,         Eurecom
Jeff Brueggeman,        AT&T
John W. Byers,          Boston University
Claude Castelluccia,    INRIA
Augustin Chaintreau,    Columbia University
David Choffnes,         Northeastern University
Daniel Coloma,          Telefónica
Emiliano de Cristofaro, UCL
Josep Domingo-Ferrer,   Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Krishna Gummadi,        Max-Planck Institute for Software Systems
Tristan Henderson,      University St. Andrews
Marco Melia,            Politecnico di Torino
Ionel Naftanalia,       IAB Europe
Nick Nikiforakis,       Stony Brook University
Chris Payne,            World Federation of Advertisers
Chris Riley,            Mozilla
Vincent Toubiana        CNIL - Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et
des
Libertés
Sara Watson             Tow Center and Berkman Center

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Important dates for the submission/evaluation process are provided below:

        -       Call for proposals opening date: March 15th, 2016.
        -       Proposal Submission deadline: Apr 30th, 2016 (11:59 pm),
Madrid
(CEST)
time.
        -       Notification of grants awarded: Early June 2016.

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The application process must include:

-- A main description of up to 3 pages (9pt font) explaining succinctly
the main idea, its relevance to DTL, what will be produced and the main
innovation with respect to current state of the art in the area.

-- CV of Principal Investigator and main student (2 pages each).

Both documents should be submitted as a single PDF file along with the
information of the applicants at the submission site of DTL at:
https://dtlresearch.tid.es/dtl2016

More details about the submission and evaluation process can be found in
the DTL Award Grants Handbook
(http://datatransparencylab.org/docs/handbook2016.pdf), or contacting DTL
at: grants at datatransparencylab.org

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For more information about the DTL Grants Program, please visit:
http://www.datatransparencylab.org/grants-program.html

***EMAIL***
If you have any questions, please contact the organisers at

grants at datatransparencylab.org

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Thank you,
Data Transparency Lab
grants at datatransparencylab.org