SPUCS · Software architectures for Secure, Private, User-Controlled Smart devices
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2024-02-01 → 2026-01-31
- EU contribution
- €153,487
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Software architectures for Secure, Private, User-Controlled Smart devices
This project developed new tools to give European citizens greater transparency and control over their smartphones and other smart devices. European citizens rely on billions of smart electronic devices in their daily lives, from smartphones to smart watches, for communication, work, health, and access to public services. These devices are composed of hardware and software components supplied by a small number of foreign (non-EU) vendors who compete for control over the devices and their ecosystems. This concentration of control leads to a number of problems, including vendor lock-in, unauthorized access to user data, and even mass surveillance. As digital services become increasingly central to civic participation and economic activity in Europe, users have decreasing control over their devices and the software they use, creating security and privacy risks that affect virtually all EU citizens. This situation stands in tension with the EU's strategic objective of digital sovereignty and with the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection. It is therefore imperative that we devise technical solutions that will allow end-users to gain greater transparency and control over their devices. Such solutions are a prerequisite for building trustworthy digital infrastructure in Europe and for ensuring that citizens can participate in the digital economy on their own terms. The overall goal of the project is to contribute novel architectures, concepts and methods that are practical and easy to adopt, and that will enable users to have more control over their devices and to enjoy greater privacy protection.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
People increasingly depend on their personal smart devices (smartphones, smart watches, voice assistants) to communicate, access information, transact, and perform critical functions. These devices overwhelmingly comprise proprietary software and hardware components made by a handful of non-EU vendors. These vendors have exceptional control over those devices, raising justified concerns over anti-competitive practices, massive data gathering, surveillance, denial of service, and consequently personal freedoms and democracy. Digital sovereignty has been identified as a key political priority for the EU. SPUCS: “software architectures for Secure, Private, and User-Controlled Smart devices” contributes novel privacy-preserving architectures, realizable on existing hardware, that limit the control of vendors on user devices towards a future of open, sovereign personal devices. While previous initiatives for open and privacy-preserving smart devices lacked in functionality and therefore in adoption, SPUCS introduces concepts and methods that enable users to continue using their preferred operating systems and applications in an isolated way, with increased privacy protection. Specifically, the project will contribute secure mechanisms to seamlessly run multiple mobile operating systems simultaneously on a mobile device with strong isolation and privacy guarantees – limiting vendors’ ability to collect and connect data. Furthermore, the project will develop methods for securely running individual applications (phone, messaging, banking) on an open platform without trusting the operating system or proprietary vendor software. Finally, the project will plan an adoption strategy that will boost the scientific and industrial impact of the results towards a secure and self-sovereign Europe. The project also fosters interdisciplinary two-way transfer of knowledge between the researcher and the host, as well as training of the researcher in advanced scientific techniques.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101108713
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e51007545a&appId=PPGMS
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e527584ed8&appId=PPGMS
Data: CORDIS, © European Union