Privacy in Speech and Language Technology: Vulnerable groups and legal considerations

Abstract

This report documents the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 22342 "Privacy in Speech and Language Technology". The seminar brought together 27 attendees from 9 countries (Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and the USA) and 6 distinct disciplines (Speech Processing, Natural Language Processing, Privacy Enhancing Technologies, Machine Learning, Human Factors, and Law) in order to achieve a common understanding of the privacy threats raised by speech and language technology, as well as the existing solutions and the remaining issues in each discipline, and to draft an interdisciplinary roadmap towards solving those issues in the short or medium term. To achieve these goals, the first day and the morning of the second day were devoted to 3-minute self-introductions by all participants intertwined with 6 tutorials to introduce the terminology, the problems faced, and the solutions brought in each of the 6 disciplines. We also made a list of use cases and identified 6 cross-disciplinary topics to be discussed. The remaining days involved working groups to discuss these 6 topics, collaborative writing sessions to report on the findings of the working groups, and wrap-up sessions to discuss these findings with each other. A hike was organized in the afternoon of the third day. The seminar was a success: all participants actively participated in the working groups and the discussions, and went home with new ideas and new collaborators. This report gathers the abstracts of the 6 tutorials and the reports of the working groups, which we consider as valuable contributions towards a full-fledged roadmap.