This project will aim to improve the current PET models and formalisms describing both privacy, as well as the loss of privacy with a goal to improve these models so as to better understand the causes of, and solutions to, privacy breaches. In the same vein, they will develop useful technologies for enhancing the privacy of citizens of an electronic world.
Dr. Ian Goldberg, University of Waterloo and Dr. Rei Safavi-Naini, University of Calgary
In today’s highly connected world in which data is so easy to collect, search, and transfer, privacy is of increasing importance. Unfortunately, the way most communication happens today - particularly over the Internet - is quite privacy unfriendly. When you send email, use instant messaging, or simply browse the world-wide web, information about you and your actions gets disseminated to diverse parties around the world, and you have little, if any, control over it. Privacy enhancing technologies (or PETs) aim to mitigate this problem by giving individuals the ability to more finely control the spread of information about their online actions. Thus, this project will aim to improve the current PET models and formalisms describing both privacy, as well as the loss of privacy with a goal to improve these models so as to better understand the causes of, and solutions to, privacy breaches. In the same vein, they will develop useful technologies for enhancing the privacy of citizens of an electronic world.