Please note: This seminar will take place online.
Kris Shrishak
Public Interest Technologist and Senior Fellow
Enforce
Privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) have been researched and promoted for the past few decades. Amidst greater public awareness of personal data collection and application of data protection regulations, the number of implementations of PETs have increased in the past few years. Given the promise and expectation of PETs to protect people’s privacy and the hope of researchers to see use-cases of PETs, what is the reality of PETs in today's world? Are the privacy needs of people being met? This talk will take you through a journey of PETs, visiting data protection law and international human rights law along the way.
Bio: Dr. Kris Shrishak is a public interest technologist and a Senior Fellow at Enforce. He advises legislators on emerging technologies and global AI governance (including EU AI Act). He is regularly invited to speak at the European Parliament and has testified at the Irish Parliament. His work focuses on privacy tech, anti-surveillance, emerging technologies, and algorithmic decision making.
His expert commentary appears in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, the LA Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Politico, The Irish Times and other leading media. He has been interviewed on TV and radio, including on CNN, the BBC, Euronews and France24. He has written for Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Nikkei Asia and Euronews, among others.
He works on the kind of cryptography that allows computing on encrypted data and proving existence of information without revealing them. These technologies, broadly known as privacy enhancing technologies (PETs), could be beneficial. However, there are risks that have not been sufficiently researched. Previously Kris was a researcher at Technical University Darmstadt in Germany where he worked on applied cryptography, PETs and Internet infrastructure security.