Privacy and Security in Slack: Safeguarding Data in Features and Models

Aaron discusses the significance of data privacy in Slack and its relevance to both the feature engineering and model training processes. He emphasizes the importance of protecting customer data and maintaining privacy in business communications within Slack. Aaron highlights the careful considerations and precautions taken during feature design to ensure privacy, as well as the need to prevent models from memorizing and potentially exposing sensitive information shared in Slack. The episode sheds light on the critical role played by data privacy in the development and operation of Slack's features and models. MLOps Coffee Sessions #157 with Katrina Ni & Aaron Maurer, MLOps Build or Buy, Startup vs. Enterprise? co-hosted by Jake Noble of Tecton.ai. Link to full episode: https://youtu.be/IC2uilYf1sc This episode is sponsored by tecton.ai - check out their feature store to get your real-time ML journey started. // Abstract There are a bunch of challenges with building useful machine learning at a B2B software company like Slack, but we've built some cool use cases over the years, particularly around recommendations. One of the key challenges is how to train powerful models while being prudent stewards of our clients' essential business data, and how to do so while respecting the increasingly complex landscape of international data regulation. // Bio Katrina Ni Katrina is a Machine Learning Engineer in Slack ML Services Team where they build ML platforms and integrate ML, e.g. Recommend API, Spam Detection, across product functionalities. Prior to Slack, she is a Software Engineer in Tableau Explain Data Team where they build tools that utilize statistical models and propose possible explanations to help users inspect, uncover, and dig deeper into the viz. Aaron Maurer Aaron is a senior engineering manager in the infra organization at Slack, managing both the machine learning team and the real-time services team. In six years at Slack, most of which Aaron spent