Oral History Interview with Dr. Alessandro Acquisti

Abstract

This oral history interview is sponsored by and a part of NSF 2202484 “Mining a Useable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes, and Possibilities with Security and Privacy,” at the Charles Babbage Institute. Alessandro Acquisti started with the journey of the development of interest in bridging digital privacy and economics through his study first at the University of Roma and then at Berkeley. He also shared his experiences studied with a number of influential scholars including but not limited to Mario Baldassarri, Hartmut Lehman, Hal Varian, Ross Anderson, and so on. In addition, he reflected on the experience of the interdisciplinary approach at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University and how this approach has helped him with his research in bridging the discussion of privacy in the digital world and economics. He also discussed the goals and visions of two master’s programs at CMU, the Master of Information Systems Management (MISM) and the Master of Science in Information Security Policy and Management (MISPM), that train professionals with knowledge of both technical and policy knowledge of privacy. He also shared his experience acting as a member of the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine and his testimonies in the United States and in Europe. He shared his observations on privacy protection in these two areas. In terms of his academic work, in this interview, he shared the context of his dissertation titled Essays on privacy, anonymity, and tracking in computer-mediated economic transactions. Moreover, approaching privacy both as an economic phenomenon and as a process of boundary regulation, Acquisti shared his observations, derived from his research, on the effects of privacy technologies on market competition, and the economic consequences of digital privacy laws such as the GDPR. At the end of the interview, he commented on the progression of information technology and its infringement of the private sphere but expressed an ultimately optimistic attitude, seeing that it was in human nature to carve a space for one’s private sphere. Readers can also find his views on a number of issues, from the relationship between security and privacy, to the debate on the Clipper Chip.