|
Past research
projects
NETWORK OF EXCELLENCE IN INTERNET SCIENCE (EINS)
project, Co-Chair (July 2012 - May 2015 )
Within the
EINS
project I worked as a co-chair of the 'Internet
Privacy and Identity, Trust and Reputation Mechanisms - JRA5'
working group.
The explosion of content and data in
the forms of messages, photos, videos and links in social networking
sites and cloud computing servers across the Internet has raised
questions about user privacy and the security of his/her data,
concepts that are little understood even by experienced users.
Aiming to become a reference point for the coordination of studies
in legislation and technology addressing privacy, identity, online
trust and reputation, JRA5 drew
together and further developed research on distributed social networks
(such as Diaspora and Footlights), partial identities (PrimeLife),
privacy-protective
sensor networks (FRESNEL), privacy beliefs and behaviours (PVNets),
online trust and reputation mechanisms. It integrated research
efforts, scientific concepts and methodologies from computer
science, psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science,
statistics, graph theory, behavioural economics and law, and
investigated trade-offs between anonymity and accountability, and how
decentralized privacy-enhanced systems can protect against spam,
offensive content and criminal activities, while at the same time
creating reliable and trusted mechanisms for online interaction
based on reputation systems.
The basic goal of Internet Science for privacy and identity should
be to find the right combination of autonomy (solving security and
privacy issues a user cannot resolve) and user control, in a way
that is comprehensible and likely to be accepted.
PRIVACY TRENDS project (April 2012 - April 2013)
This Google funded project will develop a tool, called Privacy
Trends, that
collects and aggregates online reports from social media platforms
on the topic of privacy. These reports will in turn be summarised
and visualised, the output of which will be presented to everyday
Internet users as a way to sensitise them on ongoing privacy
violations. The design of this tool will be informed by users’
needs. Thus, users will be involved in the early design process,
which will result in a set of ‘requirements’ and design concepts.
Recent research in computational linguistics and information
visualisation can be applied to summarise the rich and accessible
sources of online information produced about privacy. This can drive
the design of new applications that will educate users on why and
how privacy may be compromised, enabling them to participate in the
privacy debate as informed stakeholders. Such tools can also help
users reflect on their own technological practices, motivating them
to take proportionate actions to protect their privacy. Principal
Investigator of this project is
Dr. Mina Vasalou from the Centre of
Human-Computer Interaction, School of Computer Science, University
of Birmingham.
INTEGRATED MOBILE SECURITY KIT (IMSK)
project (September 2012 - December 2012)
The continuously evolving threat of unpredictable terrorist activity
demands the innovative application of existing and developing
technology for the protection of the EU’s citizens. The
Integrated Mobile Security Kit (IMSK) project
will combine technologies for area surveillance; checkpoint control;
sniper detection; CBRNE detection and support for VIP protection
into a mobile system for rapid deployment at venues and sites
(hotels, sport/festival arenas, etc) which temporarily need enhanced
security.
To succeed, the project will employ legacy and novel sensor
technologies, design a system (IMSK) that will integrate sensor
information to provide a common operational picture where
information is fused into intelligence, perform a field
demonstration to validate the concept,
adapt the system to
local security forces and finally disseminate the results after
accreditation by end-users. The development of IMSK will be heavily
founded on advice derived from operational security professionals.
 My
role on the project will be to look at the privacy implications of
the different sub-systems developed in IMSK and to examine whether
the developers have taken into account the Privacy Impact Assessment
reports.
SESERV project
(April 2011
- August 2012)
I worked on the European project
SESERV (Socio-Economic Services
for European Research Projects) together with
Dr. Eric Meyer. The SESERV consortium aimed to
maximize research impact by raising awareness of socio-economic
trends in the areas of incentives, accounting, Digital Europe, and
risk management, and by addressing possible policy priorities within
the research community.
The Internet has evolved from the largely static Information super
Highway of the 1990s to a critical infrastructure supporting all
aspects of life in the 21st century. The European Commission is
making significant investment in Future Internet research with the
aim of ensuring European competitiveness in the face of
globalization and emerging societal challenges.
 It is critical to
ensure that the investment in ICT research contributes effectively
to the European sustainability and welfare. The SESERV Support
Action provided an approach for coordinating selected areas in
socio-economics
of FP7 projects to offer access to both socio-economic and technical
experts in an integrated manner, while investigating the
relationship between Future Internet technology, society and the
economy.
The SESERV Coordination Action filled the gap between socio-economic
priorities and the Future Internet research community by offering
selected socio-economic services to FP7 projects in Challenge 1. SESERV provided access to socio-economic experts investigating
the relationship between Future Internet technology, society, and
the economy through white papers, workshops, and research
consultancy.
PVN project
(April 2009 - December 2011)
Privacy Value
Networks was a major three-year research project that
produced an empirical base for developing concepts of privacy across
contexts and timeframes. Despite many studies there is still a lack
of clarity of what privacy is and what it means to different
stakeholders in different scenarios of use.
 The
cost and benefit of collecting and storing data about individuals
has not been properly examined, and the value of
holding information about individuals for specific purposes is not
understood. The goal of the Privacy Value Networks project was to
develop and apply new methodologies for the study of privacy and to
help government and business to understand the value of personal
data, as well as the value and risks for other stakeholders.
The project involved collaboration between the Oxford Internet
Institute, the University of Bath, UCL and St. Andrew's University
and was funded by EPSRC grant EP/G00260/1 with support from the ESRC
and TSB.
eTRUST project
(April 2007 - May 2009)
In April 2007 I started a research project at the
Oxford Internet Institute. I had been granted a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (funded by
the European Commission under its Sixth Framework Programme) to
conduct my post-doctoral research on the topic of 'E-democracy
technologies and the problem of public trust'.
The aims of e-democracy are to increase people's choices as to how
they can participate, have their voices heard and their views
considered, and to restore their trust in government - but does this
governmental strategy really work? I focused on the question 'Does
e-democracy increase trust in government, and, if so, under what
conditions?'
The current search for technological solutions to the problem of
distrust in government seems to be paradoxical because, to increase
public trust and confidence, governments will be relying on
information and communication systems that themselves require a high
level of trust. Information technology is poorly understood by many
people, which may reduce their trust in the technology, as well as
in governments that use ICTs. Socio-economic variations amongst
citizens in terms of age, gender, income, education, geographic
location and other characteristics are also expected to influence
their level of trust in ICTs. A second question was therefore
examined: 'How does trust or distrust in e-democracy technologies
influence the use of these technologies and tools?'
WIJ
VERTROUWEN STEMCOMPUTERS NIET campaign
(2006 - 2008)
 As
a result of my research on e-voting technologies, I became
co-founder and board member of the Dutch ‘Wij
Vertrouwen Stemcomputers Niet’ [We do not trust voting
computers] Foundation. Our foundation strived for transparent and
verifiable elections and had wide public and political impact.
As a direct result
of the campaign parliamentary questions were asked, short-term
adjustments were made to the then-existing e-voting systems and two
independent committees were established by government to investigate
the electoral process. This ultimately led to the decertification of
all voting computers in the Netherlands.
TRUEVOTE project
(October 2001 - October 2003)
From the 1st of October 2001 I started work on another EU
project called
TRUEVOTE
together with
Prof. Peter van den Besselaar.
The TruE-Vote project aimed at developing a secure and trusted
voting system, where "secure" concerned the technological aspects
and "trusted" the social ones. In this project we investigated the
technical feasibility and the social acceptability of introducing
electronic voting systems.
 Improving
citizenships and e-democracy through networking technologies is part
of the overall goal of creating the Information Society which needs
to be validated through concrete initiatives. These 'experiments'
(even though the word is not probably the best as people are
involved) have to consider several issues including:
-
giving everybody access to the Information Society;
-
providing people with a more convenient access to government
information and services;
-
closing the communication gap between citizens and government
institutions, i.e., giving people a chance to directly dialogue
with their representatives, both at local and national level;
-
introducing new voting systems.
These topics are to some extent independent, but also mutually
coupled. Moreover, it is necessary to consider the strict interplay
between the technological and the cultural, socio-political aspects.
A new technology for voting may be accepted or rejected by citizens
depending on the socio-technical context in which it is proposed to
them.
FASME
project
(February 2000 - September 2001)
In February 2000 I started to work full-time on a EU project called
FASME.
The main objective of FASME was to develop an application which
facilitates the administrative services needed when citizens change
the place where they live, e.g. car registration services and
driving licence. The technical platform was a so-called JavaCard; a
Smartcard based on the object-oriented programming language Java. In
order to base all technical developments on the actual needs and
demands of those people who will use the JavaCard, the user needs
were identified during workshops with users and civil servants from
different countries. At the same time, the technical specifications
of the application scenarios were defined and generalised in order
to obtain a framework for the modelling of processes, access rights,
and access needs.
At the University of Amsterdam we were responsible for the more
social aspects. We analysed the social, institutional, political and
legal issues related to the design and the implementation of the
FASME-system.
 We
also analysed interests of various groups involved in the use of the
FASME-system and issues that may influence the acceptance of the
system by the larger public. The emphasis was put on privacy issues,
information ownership issues and administrative and legal issues. As
the FASME system was meant for use in all European countries, the
analysis included a description of the differences between social,
institutional, political and legal issues in the countries involved.
The Amsterdam Team consisted of
Prof. Peter van den Besselaar,
Prof.
Sally Wyatt, Anne-Marie Oostveen, Erica Gasataya and Iam Hooijen.
SOEIS project
(April 1999 - January 2000)
In April 1999 I started to work parttime at the
University of Amsterdam
on my first European project called
SOEIS.
The abbreviation SOEIS stands for "Self-Organization of the European
Information Society".
|
