Christian Robert Delivers Al-Kindi Lectures on Data Privacy at KAUST
How can researchers share useful data while protecting the people behind it? This question took centre stage on 1–2 November 2026, when KAUST welcomed Professor Christian P. Robert of Paris Dauphine-PSL University for the Al-Kindi Distinguished Statistics Lectures. A leading contributor to Bayesian statistics and computational methods, Robert brought an international perspective to a challenge with implications across science, government and industry.
About
Understanding the privacy challenge
In his first lecture, On the Difficulties of Assessing Statistical Privacy, on 1 November, Robert explored the challenges of assessing what shared data might reveal about individuals. He examined established approaches to privacy protection and their limitations, highlighting the importance of considering what others could infer from released information and how those inferences might affect their decisions.
A Bayesian perspective
His second talk, Bayesian Decision-Theoretic Privacy, on 2 November, focused on frameworks that place these decisions at the heart of privacy assessment. Persuasive privacy and Bayesian adversarial privacy connect protection to the purpose and context of data use, offering ways to assess disclosure risks alongside the benefits of legitimate analysis. Together, the talks linked a pressing practical concern with fundamental questions in Bayesian inference and decision theory.
Connecting ideas and researchers
The annual Al-Kindi series brings distinguished statisticians to KAUST for lectures aimed at both general and specialist audiences. For the STAT community, Prof. Robert’s visit offered a valuable opportunity to connect Bayesian methodology with responsible data sharing and engage with ideas at the forefront of statistical research.