Latanya Arvette Sweeney

Who is Latanya Arvette Sweeney?

Latanya Arvette Sweeney is a Professor of Government and Technology in Residence at Harvard University and the Director of the Data Privacy Lab in the Institute of Qualitative Social Science at Harvard. She has made several contributions to privacy technology. Her best known academic work is on the theory of k-anonymity and she is credited with the observation that "87% of the U.S. population is uniquely identified by date of birth, gender, postal code."

Sweeney develops technology to assess and solve societal problems and teaches others how use the same technology. She has made several discoveries related to identifiability and privacy technologies. Her work has received awards from numerous organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Informatics Association, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Her work was praised in the TAPAC Report that reviewed the Total Information Awareness Project of DARPA. She has testified before the Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security and the European Union Commission.