Privacy is relevant for virtually any application handling data. Therefore, studying privacy is critical, especially considering the increasing digitalization of applications. In order to protect sensitive information, it is crucial to have strong guarantees that systems respect privacy. New digital applications need to be secured and protected against any misuse, such as surveillance, profiling, stalking, or coercion (e.g., a doctor should be able to make prescriptions without pressure from pharmaceutical companies).
One way to formally specify how systems and applications work is to model them with security protocols. They are protocols defining how messages are exchanged between several parties, often relying on cryptographic operations. In this talk, I will introduce the notion of $(\alpha, \beta)$-privacy in security protocols and illustrate the problem with examples. I will present recent research about automated verification of privacy and mention important challenges.
I am a PhD student under the supervision of Sebastian Mödersheim and Luca Viganò. I am working in the Software Systems Engineering section at DTU Compute, the department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science of the Technical University of Denmark. Previously I completed there an MSc in Computer Science and Engineering with a focus on safety and security by design.
My research topic is the study of privacy using formal methods and logic, and in particular automated verification techniques. The goal is to better understand the actual privacy guarantees of digital applications so that we can develop technology respecting peoples' rights to privacy.