What Will It Take to Get to Acceptable Privacy-Accuracy Combinations?

Abstract

What will it take to achieve acceptable privacy-accuracy combinations? I discuss this question in five parts. In Section 1, I review the technicalities of the privacy-accuracy trade-off problem. In Section 2, I introduce the two articles in this symposium that study real-world privacy-accuracy combinations. In Sections 3 and 4, I ask, respectively: What is acceptable accuracy? What is acceptable privacy? I consider these questions through the lens of the two articles. I conclude in Section 5, connecting the technical questions that practitioners study (from Sections 1 and 2) with the normative questions that only society as a whole can and should answer (from Sections 3 and 4). I argue that while great technical progress has been made, much more work is needed before we can talk of getting even close to an acceptable privacy-accuracy combination. I touch on some currently investigated ideas for moving forward, and end with a call to open and broaden the conversation, bringing the rest of society in.