CSC 533 - Privacy in the Digital Age, Fall 2025
All students in this course will be required to complete a project throughout the semester. Students can work in groups of four students. The scope of the project will scale with the size of the group. For your group project in this course, I encourage you to select a topic that addresses a real-world privacy challenge. Your project can focus on analyzing or measuring privacy risks in existing systems, designing and evaluating privacy-enhancing technologies, or conducting user-oriented studies to understand privacy perceptions and behaviors. The goal is to explore a problem with practical relevance, apply rigorous methods, and produce insights that could inform policy, design, or public awareness.
Schedule
| Deadline | Assignment |
|---|---|
| 09/04 | Project topic submission due |
| 09/09 | Project topic assignment |
| 09/25 | Project task breakdown with methodology and evaluations/deliverables articulated (10 points) |
| 10/20-10/24 | Project progress discussion with instructor (30 points) |
| 11/25 | Final Project Elevator Pitch (20 points) |
| 12/02 | Final report (40 points) |
Project assignments are structured to ensure steady progress throughout the semester and to provide timely, constructive feedback on your work. Assignments submitted on time will be graded within one to two weeks; late submissions will not be accepted unless prior approval is obtained for legitimate reasons. You are welcome to submit assignments early to receive early feedback.
Deliverables
Topic Selection
One submission per group through a Google form. You are expected to submit 2-3 topic ideas. Please submit your ideas using the following Google Form. You should propose to work in groups of four students.
Project Task Breakdown — Submission Guidelines
One submission per group through Moodle. You are expected to provide a maximum of two page PDF of the project task breakdown. It should cover, the following:
- Problem Statement
- Related Work (clearly highlight how your approach differs from prior work)
- Proposed Methodology (how you will address/investigate the problem, including how required data will be obtained or collected)
- Team Responsibilities (what each member will do)
- References formatted in IEEE or ACM style
Grading rubric
| Criteria | Weight |
|---|---|
| Problem statement | 20% |
| Related Work | 40% |
| Proposed Methodology | 30% |
| Team Responsibilities | 10% |
Project Progress Discussion
You will get 10-15 minutes to present your ongoing project work. A project presentation is an opportunity for you (and your team) to get early feedback on your ongoing work. To ensure you make the best use of this opportunity, please outline your presentation to include the following items (this is a rough outline, so feel free to modify as you see fit):
- Motivation for the project and problem statement (1-2 slide)
- Proposed approach (2-3 slides)
- Progress thus far (1 slide)
- Next steps (1-2 slides)
- Questions (1 slide)
Grading rubric
| Criteria | Weight |
|---|---|
| Problem motivation | 20% |
| Your proposed approach to address the issue | 40% |
| Progress thus far | 30% |
| Next steps | 10% |
Final Project Elevator Pitch
You will get 3-4 minutes to present your ongoing project work. To ensure you make the best use of this opportunity, please outline your presentation to include the following items (this is a rough outline, so feel free to modify as you see fit):
- Motivation for the project and problem statement (1 slide)
- Proposed approach (1-2 slides)
- Findings (1-2 slide)
- Future Work/Limitations (1 slide)
Grading rubric
| Criteria | Weight |
|---|---|
| Problem motivation | 20% |
| Your proposed research | 30% |
| Findings | 40% |
| Future Work/Limitations | 10% |
Final Report
One submission per group. After the title, provide all the team members' names and unity IDs. Submission should be in PDF. The final report should contain a link to GitHub or Google Drive for relevant code and data.
Use Latex with font size 11pt and single space. The final report should be around 6 pages excluding references. Use the ACM Latex style file available here ACM_LATEX. Use the sample-sigconf.tex sample and change the font size to 11pt [\documentclass[sigconf,11pt]{acmart}]. Or use Overleaf. Submissions not following this format will be penalized.Here are some things we will be looking for in your report:
- A well-structured report with the following sections:
- Introduction (with motivation and problem statement)
- Related literature/work
- Proposed research/methodology
- Findings (plots and figures with explanation followed by highlighted takeaway message statement)
- Future directions (in bullet points)
- Team contribution (who lead what parts in bullet points)
- Reference (IEEE or ACM format)
- Properly formatted bibliography with an appropriate number of references (most reports should have at least 10 references; references can include online blogs, and conference or journal papers).
- Paper that has been spell checked and proof read. If English is not your native language, please request a friend to help you proof-read your final paper before you submit it. Also, take advantage of word processors with spell checkers and grammar checkers like `Grammarly'. There are also writing centers on campus with tutors who can assist you.
- You should not use Generative AI tool for generating text. You can use such tools for grammar and spell check only
- Well formatted paper (adequate margins and spacing, proper font size, clear figures with appropriate captions, etc.).
Please submit your final paper in PDF format.
Grading rubric
| Criteria | Weight |
|---|---|
| Introduction and motivation | 10% |
| Related literature/work | 15% |
| Proposed research/methodology | 25% |
| Findings | 20% |
| Future directions | 10% |
| Team Contribution | 10% |
| Reference | 10% |