Publications

On our C4DT publications page, you will find a wealth of information on our latest research in the digital trust space. Our publications are organized into different categories, including Focus, Observers, Public Events, Annual Report, Factory and Digital Governance and Policy.

Focus

With targeted interviews of international experts and a selection of the most relevant articles on the subject, the C4DT Focus offers valuable insights into a digital topic that was in the news recently

C4DT FOCUS 8 Data Protection in the EU and Switzerland

Nearly seven years after the entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, what impact has it had on data protection? What are the main legislative differences between the European Union and Switzerland? And how will the situation evolve as the rise of generative AI in our daily lives further exacerbates privacy challenges? This edition of C4DT Focus explores these ques-tions by providing an overview of the situation in Europe and Switzerland, highlighting the simi-larities and differences, particularly through two interviews with data protection specialists

C4DT FOCUS 7 The Encryption Dilemma

C4DT FOCUS 6 How does Big Tech keep us on the hook?

C4DT FOCUS 5 How is China regulating big tech algorithms

C4DT FOCUS 4 Happy fourth birthday, GDPR!

C4DT FOCUS 3 Hacking in times of crises

C4DT FOCUS 2 Protecting journalists and their sources

C4DT FOCUS 1 Focus on China Tech regulation

This edition has been written by scientific writer Lionel Pousaz

Factory blog posts

The C4DT Factory team proposes technical blog posts on digital trust topics

Recap of the eID Privacy Hands-on Workshop

The Center for Digital Trust hosted a successful workshop on Privacy-Preserving eID last week. We welcomed 14 participants from seven partner organizations including Be-Ys, ELCA, FOITT, Kudelski, SICPA, Swiss Post/SwissSign, and Swisscom. The day-long event combined theoretical foundations with hands-on technical demonstrations. Our focus centered on swiyu, Switzerland’s proposed eID project developed by FOITT, and (...)

Matrix at EPFL

Matrix is a widely used open source chat platform. It is an alternative to platforms such as Slack and MSTeams. In line with C4DT’s objective to promote services in the realm of digital trust, we set up our own Matrix instance and migrated our professional communications there in 2019. A privacy-first approach with encrypted chat (...)

Get a PET for X-Mas

Privacy Enhancing Technologies, or PETs for short, is an umbrella term for a wide range of technologies and tools designed to protect our privacy online. You may not realize it, but you probably already use PETs on a daily basis. Some common examples [1] include HTTPS, securing connections between you and websites End-to-end encryption, ensuring (...)

E-ID hands-on Workshop

We’re thrilled to share the success of our recent hands-on workshop on crafting more privacy-preserving E-IDs! In the morning, Imad Aad from C4DT set the stage with an insightful overview of the importance of E-IDs and the essentials for ensuring their effectiveness. The afternoon sessions, led by Linus Gasser and Ahmed Elghareeb, were a deep dive (...)

Curtain Call for our Demonstrators: A Summary

  One of our jobs at the C4DT Factory is to work on promising projects from our affiliated labs. This helps the faculties translate their research into formats accessible to different audiences. For a newly on-boarded project, we evaluate its current state and identify the required steps towards a final product. We may then also (...)

Testing TLS in local development

TLS or Transport Layer Security is the cryptographic protocol that allows your internet connected devices to contact any website or any API or cloud service securely (over HTTPs). It adds privacy to your connection, by encrypting the transferred data, and more importantly helps your computer make sure that it’s talking to the right server, and (...)

Pitfalls in Fine-Tuning LLMs

On the 19th of June 2024 the C4DT Factory organized a hands-on workshop to show what can go wrong when Large Language Models (LLMs) are fine-tuned. It was a pleasure working with our partners from armasuisse, FOITT (BIT), ELCA, ICRC, Kudelski Security, SICPA, Swiss Post, and Swissquote. LLMs take the world by storm, but for (...)

Empowering Digital Identities: The SSI Protocol Landscape

In this fourth part of the blog series “Swiss e-ID journey”, we give an overview of the Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) [10] landscape in CH, EU, and beyond. This allows the reader to put the current effort of the e-ID in context with international efforts in references and implementations regarding e-ID systems. You can read the (...)

Digital Governance and Policy

C4DT Insight #3: Purpose first: The need for a paradigm shift in privacy-preserving data sharing

In this paper, the authors highlight the crucial trade-off between privacy and utility in data sharing and call for a shift from technology-centric solutions to purpose-driven policies. The paper formulates eight actionable recommendations to guide realistic, privacy-preserving data-sharing practices in Europe.

C4DT Insight #2: Datenstrategie,-Policy und -Regulierung für die Schweiz

In diesem Paper diskutieren Melanie Kolbe-Guyot und Matthias Finger die Notwendigkeit einer umfassenden Datenpolitik für die Schweiz, um das Potenzial von Daten durch klare Regeln und Anreize zu nutzen und die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit langfristig zu sichern. Es formuliert 6 Handlungsempfehlungen für die Politik.

Book Review: The Tech Coup – How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley (2024)

Schaake, Marietje (2024). The Tech Coup – How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. Princeton University Press, 336 pages. By Melanie Kolbe-Guyot It is safe to say that probably no other book should more be on your reading list this year than Marietje Schaake’s 2024 “The Tech Coup – How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley”. (...)

Book Review: “The Ethics of Privacy and Surveillance” by Carissa Véliz, Oxford University Press – 256 pages

The Ethics of Privacy and Surveillance by Carissa Véliz, Oxford University Press – 256 pages by Hector Garcia Morales “Privacy matters because it shields us from possible abuses of power”. Such a strong statement opens the introduction of the book, setting the grounds for the following pages. The thesis is that, in digital societies, there (...)

Book Review: Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest To End Privacy As We Know It (2023)

Investigative journalist Kashmir Hill traces the rise and consequences of facial-recognition company Clearview AI on the future of privacy.

C4DT Insight #1: Welche Zukunft für den Service public im Zeitalter der digitalen Plattformen?

In diesem Policypaper gehen Matthias Finger und Melanie Kolbe-Guyot auf die Herausforderungen ein, die digitale Plattformen für die traditionellen Service public mit sich bringen. Sie schlagen handlungsfähige Strategien für politische Entscheidungsträger vor, um die Zugänglichkeit, Erschwinglichkeit und Nachhaltigkeit des bestehenden Service public zu gewährleisten.

C4DT Insight #1: What does the future hold for the service public in the digital platform era?

In this policy paper, Matthias Finger and Melanie Kolbe-Guyot unpack the challenges that digital platforms bring to traditional service public sectors. They suggest actionable strategies for policymakers to ensure accessibility, affordability, and sustainability of the existing physical service public offerings.

Book Review: Digital Empires. The Global Battle to Regulate Technology (2023)

This book offers an in-depth, objective analysis of the three dominant regulatory models for digitalization—market-driven by the US, state-driven by China, and citizen-driven by the EU—and their global impacts on data, digital platforms, and the internet, highlighting the current geo-political struggles and possible future scenarios.