Privacy is a major concern in modern communications networks. In particular, user location infornation is considered critical personal information that should be protected. Furthermore, the booming technological developments in the field of joint communications and sensing is increasing the amount of potentially personal information being collected by communication devices.
However privacy management is a multi-faceted question: end users are often required to share location-related information to specific services which may have legitimate uses of this information (such as providing delivery services, weather forecast, or other services based on geographic context). Radio resource management is another example of application where user location plays a critical role in ensuring efficient network operations. Hence, it is critical not only to control what personal information is shared, but to whom, and classical privacy-preserving measures such as end-to-end encryption fall short of delivering the expected protection.
The object of the Workshop on Privacy in Wireless Communications is to explore these aspects of privacy in communications networks, with an emphasis on the protection of location and pseudo-location information. With 6G networks being standardised with the notion of user-centric data ownership as a central privacy protection mechanism, this event will provide the opportunity to develop a multi-disciplinary understanding of privacy questions in wireless networks. The workshop is organized by project CHASER, a European project funded under the CHIST-ERA initiative and involving Aalto University, ETH Zürich, Inria and the University of Minho, dedicated to enhancing the applicability of self-supervised learning to the physical layer of communications systems.
The workshop will take place at Restaurant Linde Oberstrass, Universitätstrasse 91 in Zürich.
Attendance is by invitation only. If you are interested in following the workshop, please contact the organizers using the contact emails below.
| Time (CET) | Title | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00 – 9:15 | Welcome address and workshop opening | CHASER representative |
| 9:15 – 10:00 | Wireless networks and personal data : Challenges, Flaws, and Solutions | Prof. Mathieu Cunche (INSA Lyon, France) |
| 10:00 – 10:45 | Privacy in Wireless Communications Networks – Some Ethical Considerations | Prof. Peter G. Kirchschläger (University of Lucerne and ETH Zurich, Switzerland) |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | Coffee Break | |
| 11:00 – 11:45 | Personal data protection in practice: from ethical goals through legal requirements to technological and organisational measures | Prof. Fabio Ricciato (Eurostat, Luxembourg, speaking in his private capacity) |
| 11:45 – 12:30 | Privacy Aspects of Multi-Point Channel Charting: A System Perspective | Prof. Zoran Utkovski (Fraunhofer HHI, Germany) |
| 12:40 | Lunch (for CHASER project attendees and speakers) |
Mathieu Cunche is a Professor at INSA-Lyon, a member of the CITI Laboratory, and part of the Inria PRIVATICS project team. His research focuses on personal data protection and the security of wireless networks, the Internet of Things (IoT), and mobile systems. He has led multiple studies demonstrating the leakage of personal data from mobile devices through Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies. He is actively involved in standardization efforts related to privacy protection, particularly within the IEEE 802.11 and IETF organizations.
The proliferation of wireless-enabled devices, such as those utilizing Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, has revolutionized connectivity but has also introduced significant privacy vulnerabilities. These technologies routinely emit unencrypted messages containing identifiers and technical artifacts, exposing users to potential privacy breaches. In this work, we investigate the leakage of personal data through these advertising messages, as well as the efficiency of existing countermeasures. We present a collection of issues affecting Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which allow a passive eavesdropper to infer a flurry of personal data. We then analyze existing privacy-enhancing mechanisms and detail the common flaws that undermine their effectiveness. Our results underscore the urgent need for robust privacy-preserving mechanisms and the correct implementation of existing protections. Furthermore, we highlight the pivotal role of standard specifications in enhancing privacy and advocate for their integration into future developments.
Prof. Peter G. Kirchschläger is since 2017 Full Professor of Theological Ethics and Director of the Institute of Social Ethics ISE at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Lucerne, since 2014 Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (South Africa), since 2023 Visiting Professor at the Chair for Neuronal Learning and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich as well as at the ETH AI Center – one of the world's largest hubs for research in the field of so-called "Artificial Intelligence" – and since 2024 Visiting Fellow at the Global Ethic Institute at the University of Tuebingen (Germany). Prior, he was 2015-2017 Visiting Fellow at Yale University (USA).
Born 1977 in Vienna (A). Married and father of two daughters. Studies of Theology and Judaism in Lucerne, in Rome (Gregoriana), and Jerusalem (2001: MA at the University of Lucerne) and studies of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Political Science at the University of Zurich (2003: MA at the University of Zurich). 2002: Intensive Course in Entrepreneurship at the Babson College (Wellesley, MA) thanks to the NETS (New Enterpreneurship)-Award of Gebert Ruef Foundation. 2004-2008: PhD at the University of Zurich with a research-project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). September 2005-August 2006: Research Stay at the University of Chicago Divinity School (USA) with a scholarship of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Swiss Study Foundation, and the Otto-Herz-Study-Foundation. 2008: PhD at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Zurich. 2012: Habilitation in Theological Ethics with focus on Social Ethics at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Fribourg and appointment as Private Lecturer. 2011-2015 Chair ad interim at the Chur University of Theology and 2013-2015 Dean of Research at the Chur University of Theology. 2011-2015 Member of the Board of the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Human Rights.
TBD
The speaker participates to the workshop in his personal capacity. The information and views set out in the talk are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Commission.
In this talk I will share a comprehensive personal view of how to approach data protection aspects. Since everything in life is a matter of definitions, the talk starts from clarifying the difference and relationship between the notions of “privacy” and “data protection”. We shall review the ethical motivations for protecting personal data and how the ethical goals have been translated into legal requirements in the European legislation, i.e., in GDPR. From there, we will derive guidelines and suggestions for techies – how to embed data protection measures at the early stages of system conception and design, and what are the costs and main trade-offs that one could expect.
A central tenet of the talk is that data protection is ultimately an aspect of data governance, and a well-designed of coherent technological and organisational measures should serve the purpose of enforcing – not evading – data governance rules. The talk will also present a critical view of so-called Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs): starting from the distinction between Input Privacy and Output Privacy problems, we will review the fundamental limitations (and fallacies) of some recently popularized PETs and how in principle the “myth” of PETs may have counterproductive societal effects, effectively weakening rather than strengthening the quest for privacy (“privacy-washing” and PETs as “Privacy-Elusion Technologies”). In other words, we claim that PETs need to be demystified in order to be used properly.
Note for the attendees: the scope does NOT focus specifically on privacy aspects in wireless networks or wireless localisation. The scope of the talk being rather general, it is then up to the attendees to figure out in which way the ideas and messages from the talk apply (or don’t apply) and particularize to the field of wireless localisation, or any other research topics of their interest. One possible way of making a good use of the interactive session that follows the presentation could be, for instance, to have the speakers and participants discuss interactively how the content of the talk could help to identify a possible solution approach to the privacy/data protection aspects of channel charting.
Zoran Utkovski is a senior researcher at the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany, where he heads the Connected Intelligence and Robotics Group. He received a Dipl.-Ing. in electrical engineering (2000) from Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia, an M.Sc. degree (with distinction) from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden (2004), and a Dr.-Ing. Degree (summa cum laude) from Ulm University, Germany (2010). He is recipient of the Fulbright Fellowship and was a visiting scholar at New Jersey Institute of Technology and University Carlos III in Madrid. His research interests are in the areas of communication theory, machine learning, and complex systems theory. Dr. Utkovski is involved in the “6G Research and Innovation Cluster (6G-RIC),” funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and coordinated by Fraunhofer HHI, where he serves as research coordinator of the working groups.
Channel charting (CC) employs dimensionality reduction to channel state information (CSI) collected in multi-antenna wireless systems to provide a low-dimensional representation of the radio environment. In CC, wireless users are assigned pseudo-locations on the channel chart, allowing for localization-related services to be delivered without requiring actual user locations to be estimated. Intuitively, the use of pseudo-location on a channel chart can be perceived as a privacy-preserving feature (user privacy). In practice, however, the study of user privacy requires a more careful examination of the assumptions under which channel charting operates. Besides user privacy, an additional concern may be the exposure of raw CSI measurements for the learning of channel charts which may disclose proprietary information held by hardware vendors to external entities (vendor privacy). Starting from these observations, we discuss some of the privacy threats associated with CC, with the aim of obtaining a nuanced understanding of the system aspects and privacy implications inherent to CC.
Enquiries shall be directed to Maxime Guillaud, maxime.m.guillaud@ieee.org or Christoph Studer, studer@iis.ee.ethz.ch.