The research work of the Chair falls into five axis.
Axis 1. Digital Identities
This axis includes the study of the essential functions necessary for trust in the creation, supply and use of digital identity (in the sense of the real identity) and throughout its life cycle, including in a crisis context. Management issues of proof and responsibility for both legal and ethical actors are treated, particularly in the context of mobility. These issues are part of the revision of the EU framework on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions, which provides interoperability between national systems.
Axis 2. Personal Information Management
This axis aims to anticipate the application of the upcoming European regulation on the protection of personal data. It explores how we can take into account, in an automated manner, a policy of personal information management implemented by an organization. The objective here is to demonstrate policy management compliance and increase the user’s level of trust. From a more global perspective, the lost of trust and the factors likely to restore it in terms of the development of anonymity systems and "design of privacy" is addressed.
Axis 3. Contributions and traces
This theme examines how users contribute, willingly or not, to share their personal information. It deals with an understanding in the act of contribution in our digital environments as well as the modelling of Internet users' choices concerning the information they make available. The concept of role has been developed to better understand the many facets that make up digital identity. This theme also addresses the demand for privacy and seeks to determine the factors that influence the disclosure and sharing of personal information.
Axis 4. Personal Information in the Internet of Things
The purpose here is to study the personal information created by things, especially regarding the property of the identifiers from a legal point of view. The themes of co-liability and co-responsibility are also treated, which involves analyzing the relationships between data created by an object (i.e. a home smart meter), an individual and a group of individuals. This axis also covers the issues of traceability and anonymisation of the information, the management and security of automated workflows, more particularly in the cloud computing context.
Axis 5. Personal Information Policies
This last axis aims to provide criteria for evaluating systems, products or services dealing with personal information from both a technical, legal, economic and ethical point of view. These criteria, which are interdependent, will lead to the development of a methodology to objectively assess the level of compliance and guarantees offered. They can be used in the context of trust policies, particularly with regard to labelling purposes.
The research work from the Chair will be presented at seminars and conferences beginning June 2013.