There are bad people out there which aim to misuse computer systems, steal personal data or prevent systems from working reliably. Our research at the School of Computer Science and Information Technology provides novel mechanisms to ensure secure operations of our digital environment and privacy of the data these environments generate and process. In this context we also consider the ethics of computer systems.

Most computer systems surrounding us in our daily life are no longer the traditional personal computers but embedded devices forming the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT application examples are home automation systems, smart cities or automated factories. We develop novel security mechanisms to ensure secure and reliable operation of these critical infrastructures. For example, we develop methods to authenticate IoT devices based on their RF signals instead of using classical cryptography.

Nowadays novel computer interfaces such as voice control are used. We investigate how to secure these interfaces and how to ensure that people's privacy requirements are met. Only authorised people should be able to issue a voice command and it also should be ensured that your voice is not recorded if you have not given consent. For example, we have investigated methods for consent management in smart speaker environments.

Computer systems generates enormous amounts of data, sometimes directly related to our health, our habits and preferences, and other personal and sensitive information. We design technologies that can protect this information. We study techniques for data privacy, including advanced encryption and methods for trustworthy computation. For example, we developed methods to prevent smartphones from continuously tracking your location.