Inaugural lecture on 10 June 2021, 6–8pm
Location: Hans-Klein-Hörsaal, Paulinum, Augustusplatz 10, 04109 Leipzig
In 2020 the world has seen the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most disruptive events in recent decades. Many governments world-wide were ill prepared dealing with such a rapidly developing emergency. A crucial aspect for understanding this novel disease has been Data Science, specifically the ability to collect, integrate, and analyse large and detailed databases about all aspects of this disease, ranging from patient records to location details of where and when people travelled and who they met. Having access to up-to-date data about new cases allowed public health researchers and governments to make appropriate decisions to protect their populations. While in some countries such data-driven decision making prevented large-scale outbreaks, others were hampered by a lack of access to relevant and timely data.
While data privacy regulations in many countries determined how data for such a pandemic could have been collected and shared (or not), and political decisions ultimately led to recommended health policies being implemented (or not), in this talk Professur Peter Christen will discuss one crucial Data Science technology that could have made a difference if implemented and employed appropriately: the Linking of Sensitive Data.
With much data about people being highly sensitive or private – think of health, mobility, education, or financial data – linking and combining such data in one single database is not a desirable approach due to privacy concerns and the risks of data breaches. What is required are techniques and methodologies that allow the linking of such sensitive or private data across diverse organisations to facilitate the analysis of linked data while at the same time preserving the privacy of the individuals whose records have been linked. In an accessible and non-technical way, in this talk Professur Peter Christen will describe application examples, key technologies, as well are challenges and future research directions on the topic of LSD – the Linking of Sensitive Data.
Our current Leibniz Professor
Prof. Dr. Peter Christen teaches and researches at the School of Computing at the Australian National University in Canberra and is one of the leading experts on data science.