Why "Safety"? How We Use Measurement to Advance Governance of Technology

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Tuesday, June 04, 2024 - 2:50 pm3:10 pm

Irene Knapp, Internet Safety Labs

Abstract: 

Internet Safety Labs is the world's first independent product safety testing lab for software, seeking to drive industry-wide change in culture and practices. This talk discusses the philosophy of why we think privacy experts can benefit from the concept of safety, and how that framing helps us measure it. To that end, we will do a deep dive into our app safety label, part of our free public data-exploration tool, App Microscope. We will discuss how we develop our standards, rubrics, and risk dictionaries, and our methodologies for data collection.

Irene Knapp, Internet Safety Labs

Irene Knapp (they/them), the Technology Director at Internet Safety Labs, is formerly from Google's advertising privacy team. They found that trying to change the system from within left much to be desired, and have pivoted to non-profit work to drive change that way. They are an activist on a wide variety of topics, best known for tech labor organizing efforts some years ago. Their activism informs their thoughts on privacy and on the responsible governance of technology.

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