Author: Mihir Kshirsagar
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CITP Comments on AI Accountability
Recently, the White House opened a number of opportunities for the public to comment on the growing field of accountability for artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Executive Branch agency that is principally responsible for advising the President on telecommunications and information policy issues, launched a comment process that…
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States Sending Data to TikTok from Government Websites Despite Concerns
By Yash Parikh and Mihir Kshirsagar While some states like Montana are trying to ban data collection by TikTok, other states like Missouri are actively – and perhaps, unknowingly – sending their citizen’s data to TikTok. Yash Parikh, a Princeton computer science student, conducted research that reveals that at least one Missouri government website – covidvaccine.mo.gov…
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CITP Tech Clinic Files Amicus Brief In Gonzalez v. Google Case
By Nia Brazzell and Mihir Kshirsagar In Gonzalez v. Google, a case under review at the Supreme Court, the families of individuals killed by ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris allege that YouTube aided and abetted terrorist strikes by radicalizing recruits through personalized recommendations of videos. CITP’s Tech Policy Clinic filed its first amicus brief before…
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Recommendations for Updating the FTC’s Disclosure Guidelines to Combat Dark Patterns
Last week, CITP’s Tech Policy Clinic, along with Dr. Jennifer King, brought leading interdisciplinary academic researchers together to provide recommendations to the Federal Trade Commission on how it should update the 2013 version of its online digital advertising guidelines (the “Disclosure Guidelines”). This post summarizes the comment’s main takeaways. We focus on how the FTC…
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New Study Analyzing Political Advertising on Facebook, Google, and TikTok
By Orestis Papakyriakopoulos, Christelle Tessono, Arvind Narayanan, Mihir Kshirsagar With the 2022 midterm elections in the United States fast approaching, political campaigns are poised to spend heavily to influence prospective voters through digital advertising. Online platforms such as Facebook, Google, and TikTok will play an important role in distributing that content. But our new study…
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A Multi-pronged Strategy for Securing Internet Routing
By Henry Birge-Lee, Nick Feamster, Mihir Kshirsagar, Prateek Mittal, Jennifer Rexford The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is conducting an inquiry into how it can help protect against security vulnerabilities in the internet routing infrastructure. A number of large communication companies have weighed in on the approach the FCC should take. CITP’s Tech Policy Clinic convened…
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Holding Purveyors of “Dark Patterns” for Online Travel Bookings Accountable
Last week, my former colleagues at the New York Attorney General’s Office (NYAG), scored a $2.6 million settlement with Fareportal – a large online travel agency that used deceptive practices, known as “dark patterns,” to manipulate consumers to book online travel. The investigation exposes how Fareportal, which operates under several brands, including CheapOair and OneTravel…
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Calling for Investing in Equitable AI Research in Nation’s Strategic Plan
By Solon Barocas, Sayash Kapoor, Mihir Kshirsagar, and Arvind Narayanan In response to the Request for Information to the Update of the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan (“Strategic Plan”) we submitted comments providing suggestions for how the Strategic Plan for government funding priorities should focus resources to address societal issues such as…
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T’Mobile: Deleting Stale Data Reduces Liability
T-Mobile’s data breach in August 2021 exposed the social security numbers and drivers license numbers for over 40 million former or prospective customers. I recently discovered that I was one such victim because of an alert that popped up on my phone this weekend from my credit monitoring service. I was surprised because I have…
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National AI Research Infrastructure Needs to Support Independent Evaluation of Performance Claims
By Sayash Kapoor, Mihir Kshirsagar, and Arvind Narayanan Our response to the National AI Research Resource RFI highlights the significance of supporting a research infrastructure that is designed to independently test the validity of the claims of AI performance. In particular, we draw attention to the widespread phenomenon of the industry peddling what we call…
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Facebook’s Illusory Promise of Transparency
By Orestis Papakyriakopoulos, Ashley Gorham, Eli Lucherini, Mihir Kshirsagar, and Arvind Narayanan. Facebook’s latest move to obstruct academic research about its platform by disabling NYU’s Ad Observatory is deeply troubling. While Facebook claims to offer researchers access to its FORT Researcher Platform as an alternative, that is an illusory offer as we have recently learned…
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CITP’s Summer Fellowship Program for Training Public Interest Technologists
In 2020, CITP launched the Public Interest Technology Summer Fellowship (PIT-SF) program aimed at rising juniors and seniors interested in getting first-hand experience working on technology policy at the federal, state and local level. The program is supported by the PIT-UN network and accepts students from member universities. We pay students a stipend and cover…