Newswise — Washington, DC – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) awarded $1.7 million to Yale University for the development of technology that can help protect the identity and location of individuals against malicious tracking and surveillance. The project titled “PriFi Networking for Tracking-Resistant Mobile Computing” was awarded through Broad Agency Announcement HSHQDC-14-R-B0014-TTA-3-0017-I and is part of the DHS S&T Cyber Security Division’s larger Data Privacy program with the goal of developing innovative, easy-to-use and cost-effective privacy-enhancing technologies ready for deployment.
“Keeping the homeland secure depends on both guarding and granting access to secure systems, facilities, and other resources,” said DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology Dr. Reginald Brothers. “Protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is vital to the DHS mission and S&T has a long-standing interest in privacy-enhancing technologies.”
Protecting the identity and location-privacy of DHS personnel against malicious tracking and developing accountable, anonymous communications is critical to support both first responders and organizations interested in strong tracking-resistance. The S&T Cyber Security Division’s (CSD) Data Privacy program is aligned with the Federal Cyber Security Research and Development (R&D) strategic initiatives to develop a targeted set of research priorities to ensure that cyberspace is safe, trustworthy and prosperous. Specifically, the program provides the federal R&D community with expertise and resources to enhance the security and privacy of future technology development.
“Cyber threats are rapidly shifting and privacy related breaches are increasing in frequency and impact,” said Anil John, S&T Data Privacy Program Manager. “S&T CSD is working to develop innovative solutions that ensure the protection of individual privacy is consistent with applicable law, policy and mission.”
The Yale University team, led by Dr. Joan Feigenbaum, proposes to build an anti-tracking and location-private network access mechanism to protect members of an organization both while on and off-site. The PriFi project builds on recent advances in state-of-the-art anonymity technology.
For more information visit scitech.dhs.gov/cyber-research.
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