Lin Kyi is one of the 2025 Google PhD Fellowship recipients
2025 Global Google PhD Fellowships recognize outstanding graduate students who are conducting exceptional and innovative research in computer science and related fields, specifically focusing on candidates who seek to influence the future of technology.
Lin Kyi received one of the 2025 Google PhD Fellowships for her research on online consent. Lin Kyi is a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute of Security and Privacy in the Responsible Computing Group. Her work focuses on consent for data processing, namely, treating it as a foundational principle for building ethical technologies and giving users autonomy over their data.
Based on insights from her previous work, Lin is proposing collective consent as a way forward to give users more autonomy over their data compared to individual forms of consent (such as consent notices). “Given the increasingly complex digital world we are immersed in, it is unreasonable for individuals to be fully informed of data practices and make so many complex consent decisions daily“, says Kyi. Thus, she recommends “collective consent,” which can give users more leverage over their data and account for the shortcomings of individual approaches to consent. Such an approach will rely on citizen assemblies for consent decision-making, and Lin and her collaborators envision a future where these decisions are then used to inform industry and internet standards for user data collection.
Lin’s PhD will be supported by Google.org via the 2025 Global Google PhD Fellowship. The program not only provides vital direct financial support for their PhD pursuits but also connects each Fellow with a dedicated Google Research Mentor. “This mentorship will offer invaluable career and research advice as I navigate the early stages of my career,” says Kyi. “Fostering these industry relationships during my PhD will help me understand the practical challenges of deploying my ideas for data governance at scale.”
“This award is a testament to Lin's outstanding research,” says her supervisor, Asia Biega. “Her award-winning work has gained interest from regulators, trade unions, and digital rights NGOs before. Now, her vision is also recognized by the industry through this prestigious fellowship. Such a broad impact is extremely rare.”