Conference on Trade Secrets and Algorithmic Systems

View the full conference agenda. 

Organizers:  Rochelle Dreyfuss (Engelberg Center Faculty), Katherine Strandburg (ILI Faculty), and Julia Powles (ILI Fellow)

Co-sponsors: Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy and Information Law Institute

Abstract: This conference, which is by invitation only, will explore the increasingly important issues raised by trade secrecy protection of data-driven decisionmaking algorithms.  Its distinctive contribution will be to bring innovation policy and intellectual property law expertise to the emerging debate about these tools.  Participants will:

• Examine the extent to which trade secrecy is a necessary and desirable means for promoting socially desirable innovation in decisionmaking algorithms and consider possible alternatives. 
• Consider the potential implications of trade secrecy for competition among developers of decisionmaking algorithms.
• Discuss the implications of trade secrecy for the ongoing validation, error correction and updating of these tools. 
• Analyze the intersection between these innovation policy issues and the concerns about accountability, transparency, privacy and fairness that have so far dominated the debate about data-driven decisionmaking algorithms.

Day 1: Friday, November 16

1:45-3:00  Session III. Case Studies: Public Sector

• Algorithms and Agencies:  David Levine (Elon)

Day 2: Saturday, November 17

11:15-1:00  Session VI. Trade Secrecy and Forensic Technology Roundtable

Chair:  Erin Murphy (NYU)
 
Rebecca Wexler (Yale ISP), Dana Delger (Innocence Project), Christopher Slobogin (Vanderbilt), The Hon. Stephen Wm. Smith (Stanford)

2:00-3:30 Session VII. Mapping the Solution Space: Toward Socially Beneficial and Accountable Algorithmic Systems Roundtable

Chair:  Jeanne Fromer (NYU)

Andrew Tutt (Arnold & Porter), Natalie Ram (Baltimore), Colleen Chien (Santa Clara), Andrew Selbst (Data & Society), Sonia Katyal (Berkeley), Vincent Southerland (NYU)