Helen Nissenbaum is

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of information science at

Cornell Tech Cornell Tech is a graduate campus and research center of Cornell University on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan, New York City. It provides courses in technology, business, and design, and includes the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, a partners ...

. She is best known for the concept of "

contextual integrity Contextual integrity is a theory of privacy developed by Helen Nissenbaum and presented in her book ''Privacy In Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life''. It comprises four essential descriptive claims: * Privacy is provi ...

" and her work on

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

privacy law Privacy law is a set of regulations that govern the collection, storage, and utilization of personal information from healthcare, governments, companies, public or private entities, or individuals. Privacy laws are examined in relation to an ind ...

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust (law), a legal relationship in which one person holds property for another's benefit * Trust (bu ...

, and

security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercion). Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be persons and social groups, objects and institutions, ecosystems, or any other entity or ...

in the online world. Specifically, contextual integrity has influenced the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

government's thinking about privacy issues. Nissenbaum co-created the TrackMeNot and

AdNauseam AdNauseam is a free and open-source web browser extension that blocks Internet ads while automatically simulating clicks on them. Created in 2014 by Daniel Howe, Helen Nissenbaum, and Mushon Zer-Aviv, the software is a digital rights advocacy ...

browser extensions, which demonstrated the use of

obfuscation Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. The obfuscation might be either unintentional or intentional (although intent ...

to maintain user privacy.

Early life and education

Nissenbaum studied mathematics and philosophy at the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

in South Africa, graduating in 1976. She then went on to study at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where she completed a Master's in the social science of education in 1978, and a PhD in philosophy in 1983.

Work

Grants

Nissenbaum has received grants from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

, Air Force Office of Scientific Research,

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

, the

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Im ...

Office of the National Coordinator, and the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

Browser extensions

She has also contributed to several

browser extension A browser extension is a software module for customizing a web browser. Browsers typically allow users to install a variety of extensions, including user interface modifications, cookie management, ad blocking, and the custom scripting and st ...

s for

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

and Chrome. TrackMeNot was the first extension that she co-created in 2006. TrackMeNot uses the notion of privacy through

to protect the user against online identification, surveillance, and profiling. Adnostic was created in 2013 to enable online ad targeting without compromising user's privacy.

, created in 2014, follows a similar obfuscation strategy for online ads.

Publications

Nissenbaum has written or edited a number of papers and books: * * * * * * *

Honors and awards

* 2014 Barwise Prize of the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

* 2017 honorary doctorate from the

Leuphana University of Lüneburg Leuphana University Lüneburg is a public university in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Leuphana was founded in 1946 as a college of education (). Leuphana has since established a unique university model within the German academic landscape th ...

* 2019 distinguished fellow of the

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence *2021

Covey Award {{use mdy dates, date=September 2013 The Covey Award was established in 2008 by the International Association for Computing and Philosophy, to recognise "accomplished innovative research, and possibly teaching that flows from that research, in the f ...

of th
International Association of Computing and Philosophy

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nissenbaum, Helen Living people American philosophers of technology Year of birth missing (living people) Scholars of privacy law Computer law scholars 21st-century American philosophers New York University faculty Cornell Tech faculty Stanford University alumni University of the Witwatersrand alumni