2024 Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute Annual Conference

Please note: We will continue to update this page with additional programming and other details.

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8:30am	Coffee & Breakfast
9:00am	Welcome Address Charmaine Dean, Vice-President, Research and International, Professor of Statistics and Actuarial Science
9:05am	Remarks from Presenting Sponsor Kate Karn, Director, Public Policy, Mastercard
9:10am	State of CPI Anindya Sen, Professor of Economics, Acting Executive Director CPI
9:15am	Opening Keynote  Guang Gong - Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CPI Using Blockchain to Address Cybersecurity Needs for Open Banking
9:45am	Break
10:00am	Panel on Open Banking and Cybersecurity Moderator: Rima Khatib, Assistant Professor in Business Technology Management, Wilfrid Laurier University Panelists: Krista Broughton, Open Banking Lead, Mastercard Canada  Sachio Iwamoto, Director, Principal Architect, Research Lead - FinTech / Blockchain / web3, Kyndryl Jeremy M. Kronick, Associate Vice President, Director of the Centre on Financial and Monetary Policy, C.D. Howe Institute​
10:50am	Panel on How Secure are Canada’s Elections? Cybersecurity Implications Moderator: Veronica Kitchen - Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs, CPI Panelists: Nicole J. Goodman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock University Eden Lotimer, Lead Technical Advisor for the Democratic Institutions Partnerships team at the Communications Security Establishment’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security Urs Hengartner, Associate Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI
11:35am	Break
11:50am	Panel on How Can Organizations Protect Individual Privacy and What Type of Cyber Attacks Can Be Launched Moderator: Anindya Sen, Professor of Economics, Acting Executive Director CPI Panelists: Xi He, Assistant Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI Sujaya Maiyya, Assistant Professor at Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI Kami Vaniea, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CPI
12:30pm	Lunch and viewing of student poster displays​
1:30pm	Discussion on Cybersecurity Attacks with Generative AI and Synthetic Data Michael Cacho, Manager of Product Development, Mastercard Florian Kerschbaum, Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI
2:15pm	Panel on How Quantum Ready is Cybersecurity in Canada?  Organized with help from the Institute of Quantum Computing Moderator: Michele Mosca, Professor in the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization of the Faculty of Mathematics, CPI Panelists: David Jao, Professor of Mathematics, CPI Nicolas Roussy Newton, Chief Operating Officer, BTQ Technologies Jesse Van Griensven, Professor at the University of Waterloo, Chairman of TAURIA
3:00pm	Networking Break
3:15pm	Panel on Protecting Data Through Software Security Moderator: Kami Vaniea, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CPI Panelists: Mei Nagappan, Assistant Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI Meng Xu, Assistant Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI Leah Zhang-Kennedy, Assistant Professor at Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, CPI
4:00pm	Panel on The Implications of Societal Surveillance on Individual Privacy Moderator: Diogo Barradas, Assistant Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI Panelists: Adam Molnar, Assistant Professor of Sociology & Legal Studies, CPI Vance Lockton, Senior Technology Policy Advisor for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC)
4:45pm	Networking Break
5:30pm	End of Conference

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8:30am - Coffee & Breakfast

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9:00am - Welcome Address

Charmaine Dean, Vice-President, Research and International, Professor of Statistics and Actuarial Science

Dr. Charmaine Dean (Ph.D., University of Waterloo) is Vice-President, Research and International at the University of Waterloo.  In this role, she provides strategic leadership in the areas of research and innovation, commercialization, and internationalization.  She is also responsible for building strategic alliances and partnerships with other academic institutions, governments, businesses, and industries at the regional, national, federal, and international levels.

Several key collaboration portfolios are managed by her office, including the university-level Centres and Institutes and several major industrial partnerships spanning various units in the university.  She has drawn a focus to ethics and social impact related to technology developments through various initiatives and is a key driver for equity and diversity in the context of research and internationalization.

Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, Dr. Dean served as the Dean of Science at Western University from 2011 to 2017. She also played a major role in establishing the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, as the Associate Dean of that Faculty, and was the founding Chair of the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Dean has been awarded numerous honours for her work including Fellowships with the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Fields Institute, the American Statistical Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2023, she was awarded the Statistical Society of Canada Gold Medal. In 2024, she was bestowed the rank of Chevalier in the prestigious Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French government for her work advancing research connections between Canada and France.

Additionally, Dr. Dean has held several editorships and served in numerous leadership roles internationally and nationally, related to equity and inclusion, statistics and data science, research, and computing infrastructure.  In Canada, she served as President of the Statistical Society of Canada and serves on several Boards of Directors.  She is currently Chair of Council for NSERC (the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada). 

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9:05am - Remarks from Presenting Sponsor

Kate Karn, Director, Public Policy; A/Coordinator, Mastercard Changeworks

As Director, Public Policy at Mastercard Canada, Kate supports the development and management of the company’s public affairs and government relations programs, including advocacy and stakeholder management. In addition, she serves as Acting Coordinator for Mastercard Changeworks™, Mastercard Canada’s social impact program, managing partnerships to help Canada’s not-for-profits harness the power of technology and data to create positive change for Indigenous and new Canadian entrepreneurs.

Kate has a Bachelor of Public Affairs & Policy Management from Carleton University and a Master’s in International Public Policy from the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is a member of Startup Canada’s Private Sector Leadership Advisory Council and the Toronto chapter of Mastercard’s Women’s Leadership Network Executive Committee. Most recently, she served as Study Group Chair for the Northwest Territories as part of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conference.

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9:10am - State of CPI

Anindya Sen, Professor of Economics, Acting Executive Director CPI 

Anindya Sen is a professor at the Department of Economics where he has taught since 1999 and is the current Acting Executive Director for the University of Waterloo Cybersecurity & Privacy Institute, and the Director for Graduate Diploma in Computational Data Analytics for the Social Sciences & Humanities (CDASH). In 2014 he was recognized for his innovations in teaching and mentoring of students with the University Award for Distinguished Teaching. 

His current work has focused on: using advanced Machine Learning models in the analysis of government interventions on the spread of COVID-19 and identifying best Emergency Room protocols to reduce readmissions from cardiac arrests; the economics of data markets and privacy; studying human-computer interaction in the context of cybercrimes; and understanding societal trends in trust, and misinformation. 

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9:15am - Opening Keynote - Using Blockchain to Address Cybersecurity Needs for Open Banking

Guang Gong, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CPI

Abstract:

Due to its decentralized, verifiable, and immutable data between untrusted entities, blockchain is gaining significant interests across various applications, such as decentralized identity management, supply chain management, data privacy, and digital health records. In the context of open banking, customers can grant third-party providers access to their financial transaction data and personal information via APIs provided by financial technology (fintech) companies. However, this data-sharing process raises serious concerns about the privacy and security of customer data and introduces potential vulnerabilities, such as new forms of fraud. In this talk, I will begin by introducing blockchain technology and explaining why it is more resilient to attacks compared to centralized systems. I will then demonstrate how authorization is facilitated through APIs using the OpenID and OAuth frameworks, which provide secure authorization and authentication between customers, banks, and third-party providers, while also discussing some known API vulnerabilities. Lastly, I will explore how blockchain can be  applied to develop protection mechanisms for addressing cybersecurity challenges in open banking.

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Guang Gong is a full Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 2004, a University Research Chair, and an IEEE Fellow. Dr. Gong’s research interests are in the areas of pseudorandom generation, cryptography, and communication security.  Currently, her research focuses on pseudorandom generation, lightweight cryptography (LWC), IoT security, blockchain privacy,  privacy preserving machine learning, and post-quantum security.

She has authored or coauthored more than 380 technical papers, two books, and two patents. She serves/served as an Associate Editor for several  journals, including an Associate Editor for the IEEE  Transactions on Information Theory  (2005-2008, 2017 - 2018, 2020-2022) and the IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (Nov 2021 - Oct 2023 ), an Associate Editor for the Journal of Cryptography and Communications (2007 - ), and has served on numerous technical program committees and conferences as the co-chair/organizer or committee member.

Dr. Gong has received several awards, including the Premier's Research Excellence Award (2001), Ontario,  Canada,  Ontario Research Fund - Research Excellence Award (2010), Canada, IEEE Fellow (2014) for her contributions to sequences and cryptography applied to communications and security,  the University Research Chair (2018-2024), The George Boole Prize 2023, and The Cyber-security and Privacy Institute Faculty Fellow 2024 (University of Waterloo). Dr. Gong's research is supported by government grant agencies as well as industrial grants. 

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9:45am - Break

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10:00am - Panel on Open Banking and Cybersecurity

Moderator:

Rima Khatib, Assistant Professor in Business Technology Management, Wilfrid Laurier University

Rima Khatib is an Assistant Professor in Business Technology Management at Wilfrid Laurier University. She researches information and cyber security management, focusing on employee compliance with information security policies. Rima completed her PhD in IT Administration at HEC Montreal. As a scholar, she has led an educational initiative to promote cybersecurity awareness among youth, with a recent research project on cybersecurity awareness training.

Panelists:

Krista Broughton, Open Banking Lead, Mastercard Canada 

Krista brings over a decade of experience developing the emerging payment landscape, working closely with partners to bring new lines of business to market. Krista has driven growth within in issuing, acquiring, tech incubator, start up and mobility environments, working with organizations including Scotiabank, Moneris, ElementAI, and Telus.

She brings a passion for data driven collaborations and a curiosity about innovation within connected finance. Krista holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Sachio Iwamoto, Director, Principal Architect, Research Lead - FinTech / Blockchain / web3, Kyndryl

Sachio leads all Research activities for Kyndryl's top FSS clients with a focus on FinTech.  Prior to this role, he built and led the high-performance Chief Architect team as the Financial Services Sector (FSS) CTO in Canada. Over the last 34 years with Kyndryl and IBM in both Canada and Japan, Sachio had a wide variety of deep technical experiences including semiconductor circuit design in IBM lab, complex IT transformation solution design and implementation, and being a trusted advisor for major Canadian banks as a Chief Architect.

Jeremy M. Kronick, Associate Vice President, Director of the Centre on Financial and Monetary Policy, C.D. Howe Institute

Jeremy M. Kronick is Associate Vice President and Director of the Centre on Financial and Monetary Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute.

He has written on a range of topics including the link between demographics and monetary policy, how open banking will impact the economy, and the two-way link between monetary policy and shadow banking. In 2023, he won the Doug Purvis Memorial Prize alongside Steve Ambler and Thor Koeppl for C.D. Howe Institute Commentary "The Consequences of the Bank of Canada's Ballooned Balance Sheet."

Prior to joining the C.D. Howe Institute in early 2015, Jeremy worked in the international tax department at Deloitte & Touche LLP, in both the financial stability and international departments of the Bank of Canada, and as a lecturer at Brandeis University where he taught both macroeconomics and microeconomics while completing his PhD studies.

He holds an Undergraduate Degree in Economics and Mathematics from Queen’s University, a Masters in Financial Economics from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in International Economics and Finance from Brandeis University. His PhD research areas focused on the international transmission of monetary policy shocks from the developed to the developing world, as well as the

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10:50am - Panel on How Secure are Canada’s Elections? Cybersecurity Implications

Moderator:

Veronica Kitchen - Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs, CPI

Veronica Kitchen is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs, where she researches national security and teaches in the field of International Relations. She was co-director of the Canadian Network for Terrorism, Security, and Society (TSAS) and serves on the executive of its to-be-named successor.

Her most recent publication is “Multilayered but Not Coordinated: National Security Policing in Canada after 9/11” in The Legacy of 9/11: Views from North America (eds. Andrea Charron, Alex Moens & Stéphane Roussel).  She has also published extensively on heroism and global politics, IR pedagogy, mega-event security, Canadian-American security relations, and transatlantic security relations.

Panelists:

Nicole J. Goodman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock University

Dr. Nicole Goodman is an associate professor of Political Science at Brock University. Her research examines the impact of technology on civic participation and democracy. Her work has appeared in top journals and is frequently consulted by municipal, provincial/ territorial, federal and Indigenous governments, not-for-profit organizations, parliamentary committees and international governments.

Through this work, she has become an internationally recognized authority on voting technologies. Nicole has designed and led large projects that have helped shape election policy in jurisdictions across Canada. She has also supported strategic policy change or stakeholder engagement in the areas of competition, open government, and election technologies. Her work has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Mitacs.

Nicole recently completed a six-year term on the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) Board of Advisers. She currently serves as co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science and Chair of the Digital Governance Standards Institute's Technical Committee on Online Electoral Voting.

Eden Lotimer, Lead Technical Advisor for the Democratic Institutions Partnerships team at the Communications Security Establishment’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security

Eden Lotimer (she/her) is the Lead Technical Advisor for the Democratic Institutions Partnerships team at the Communications Security Establishment’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. She has worked at the Communications Security Establishment since 2013 and has held roles in Security Architecture, Policy Oversight and Compliance, and Information Management. Eden received a Bachelor of Arts Honours from the University of Saskatchewan, a Master of Archival Studies from the University of British Columbia, and Certificates in Cyber Security Foundations and Advanced Cyber Security from York University.

Urs Hengartner, Associate Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI

Urs Hengartner is an Associate Professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada, where he is a founding member of the Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) research group. His research interests are in information privacy and computer and networks security. His current research focus is on user authentication, including authenticating users based on their behavioural or physiological biometrics.  He also studies the use of machine learning for securing or attacking devices and services.  He has also worked on privacy-preserving technologies for location-based services and mobile applications, privacy-preserving location verification technologies, genomic privacy, and end-to-end voter-verifiable voting systems.

He has a degree in computer science from ETH Zurich and an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon.  He was Program Chair for ACM HotMobile 2022, Privacy Track Chair for PST 2014, Vice Technical Program Chair for PerCom 2014, and Co-workshop Chair for PerCom 2013. 

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11:35am - Break

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11:50pm - Panel on How Can Organizations Protect Individual Privacy and What Type of Cyber Attacks Can Be Launched

Moderator:

Anindya Sen, Professor of Economics, Acting Executive Director CPI

Anindya Sen is a professor at the Department of Economics where he has taught since 1999 and is the current Acting Executive Director for the University of Waterloo Cybersecurity & Privacy Institute, and the Director for Graduate Diploma in Computational Data Analytics for the Social Sciences & Humanities (CDASH). In 2014 he was recognized for his innovations in teaching and mentoring of students with the University Award for Distinguished Teaching. 

His current work has focused on: using advanced Machine Learning models in the analysis of government interventions on the spread of COVID-19 and identifying best Emergency Room protocols to reduce readmissions from cardiac arrests; the economics of data markets and privacy; studying human-computer interaction in the context of cybercrimes; and understanding societal trends in trust, and misinformation.

Panelists:

Xi He, Assistant Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI

Xi He is a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute. Her research focuses on the areas of privacy and security for big data, including the development of usable and trustworthy tools for data exploration and machine learning with provable security and privacy (S&P) guarantees.

Rather than patching systems for their S&P issues, her work takes a principled approach to designing provable S&P requirements and building practical tools that achieve these requirements. Considering S&P as a first-class citizen in system and algorithm design, she has demonstrated new optimization opportunities for these S&P-aware database systems and machine learning tools.

Xi He has published in the top database, privacy, and ML conferences including SIGMOD, VLDB, CCS, PoPets, AAAI, and presented highly regarded tutorials on privacy at VLDB 2016, SIGMOD 2017, and SIGMOD 2021. Her book “Differential Privacy for Databases,” co-authored by Joseph Near, was published in 2021.

Sujaya Maiyya, Assistant Professor at Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI

Sujaya Maiyya is an assistant professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science at University of Waterloo. Prof. Maiyya’s research interests broadly lie in distributed databases and data privacy & security. Along with her students, they design, prototype, and evaluate protocols for managing large-scale data in a performance efficient and secure manner.

Currently, Sujaya’s group is solving problems across different aspects of privacy-preserving oblivious databases such as tunable-privacy, scalability & fault tolerance, and support for relation queries. Prior to joining Waterloo, she completed a short postdoc at Cornell University. She received her PhD from UC Santa Barbara where she was co-advised by Amr El Abbadi and Divy Agrawal.

Kami Vaniea, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CPI

Kami Vaniea is an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) where she heads the Technology Usability Lab in Privacy and Security (TULiPS). The goal of her research is to make security and privacy technologies more accessible for a wide range of users including end users, developers, and system administrators. Prof. Vaniea believes that technology should support people in their activities. Her recent projects include topics like patch management, developer-centered privacy, phishing, online anonymity, smart speaker privacy, and privacy on social media. 

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12:30pm - Lunch and viewing of student poster displays​

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 1:30pm - Discussion on Cybersecurity Attacks with Generative AI and Synthetic Data

Michael Cacho, Manager of Product Development, Mastercard

Michael is a Manager of Product Development at Mastercard Security Solutions. Michael leads new product development for the Identity Verification Team, creating products to address the emerging threats of fraud across e-commerce and financial markets. Currently, Michael is also serving as the product liaison at Mastercard with the University of Waterloo’s research programs in cybersecurity and cryptography.

Previously, Michael has worked in the telecom space in product management for home security and telehealth services. Michael holds a bachelor degree of International Business from Carleton University and speaks 4 languages. Michael also holds a certificate in French Language Instruction from the University of Grenoble. In his spare time, Michael can be found leading the volunteer ski patrol at Cypress Mountain and serves on the board of directors for the Canadian Ski Patrol.

Florian Kerschbaum, Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI

Florian Kerschbaum is a Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science (joined in 2017), a member of the CrySP group, and the NSERC/RBC Research Chair in Data Security since 2019. Previously, he worked as chief research expert at SAP in Karlsruhe (2005–2016) and as a software architect at Arxan Technologies in San Francisco (2002–2004).

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (2010) and a master’s degree from Purdue University (2000). Professor Kerschbaum served as the inaugural director of the Waterloo Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute from 2018 to 2021. He is an ACM Distinguished Scientist (2019), a winner of the Outstanding Young Computer Science Researcher Award from CS-Can/Info-Can (2019) and a winner of the Faculty of Math Golden Jubilee Research Excellence Award (2022).

He is interested in security and privacy in the entire data science lifecycle. He extends real-world systems with cryptographic security mechanisms to achieve (some) provable security guarantees. His  work is used in several business applications.

2:15pm - Panel on How Quantum Ready is Cybersecurity in Canada?

Organized with help from the Institute of Quantum Computing

Moderator:

Michele Mosca, Professor in the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization of the Faculty of Mathematics, CPI

Michele Mosca is co-founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, a Professor in the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization of the Faculty of Mathematics, and a founding member of Waterloo's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is co-founder and CEO of the quantum-safe cybersecurity company, evolutionQ, and co-founder of the quantum software and applications company, softwareQ. He serves as Chair of the board of Quantum Industry Canada.

He started working in cryptography during his undergraduate studies and obtained his doctorate in Mathematics in 1999 from the University of Oxford on the topic of Quantum Computer Algorithms.  His research interests include algorithms and software for quantum computers, and cryptographic tools designed to be safe against quantum technologies.  

He co-founded the not-for-profit Quantum-Safe Canada, and the ETSI-IQC workshop series in quantum-safe cryptography and is globally recognized for his drive to help academia, industry and government prepare our cyber systems to be safe in an era with quantum computers.  

Dr. Mosca’s awards and honours include 2010 Canada's Top 40 Under 40, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2013), SJU Fr. Norm Choate Lifetime Achievement Award (2017), and a Knighthood (Cavaliere) in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2018). 

Panelists:

David Jao, Professor of Mathematics, CPI

David Jao received his PhD in Mathematics from Harvard University in 2003. From 2003 to 2006, Dr. Jao worked in the Cryptography and Anti-Piracy Group at Microsoft Research, contributing cryptographic software modules for several Microsoft products. He is currently a professor in the Mathematics Faculty at the University of Waterloo. His research interests include elliptic curve cryptography, post-quantum cryptography, protocol design, and implementation.

Prof. Jao is one of the inventors of isogeny-based cryptography and principal submitter of the SIKE cryptosystem, which advanced to round 4 of the NIST post-quantum cryptography standardization process.

Nicolas Roussy Newton, Chief Operating Officer, BTQ Technologies

Nicolas Roussy Newton is co-founder and chief operating officer of BTQ Technologies, a publicly traded quantum technology company focused on securing mission critical networks. He is also partner at Latent Capital, a special situation incubation and investment vehicle with a focus on cryptographic infrastructure.

Jesse Van Griensven, Professor at the University of Waterloo, Chairman of TAURIA

Dr. Jesse Van Griensven is a professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada.  His research is in fields such as numerical simulation, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI). His research includes blending quantum computing with machine learning, targeting diverse applications including advanced cybersecurity solutions.  

As the Chairman of TAURIA Inc., Prof. Van Griensven is pioneering AI technologies and cutting-edge post-quantum proof encryption hardware, positioning his work at the intersection of academia and industry innovation.  

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3:00pm - Networking Break

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3:15pm - Panel on Protecting Data Through Software Security

Moderator:

Kami Vaniea, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CPI

Kami Vaniea is an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) where she heads the Technology Usability Lab in Privacy and Security (TULiPS). The goal of her research is to make security and privacy technologies more accessible for a wide range of users including end users, developers, and system administrators. Prof. Vaniea believes that technology should support people in their activities. Her recent projects include topics like patch management, developer-centered privacy, phishing, online anonymity, smart speaker privacy, and privacy on social media. 

Panelists:

Mei Nagappan, Assistant Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI

Mei Nagappan is an Associate Professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Software Analysis and Intelligence Lab at Queen's University and completed his Ph.D. in the Computer Science Department of North Carolina State University. His research interests are in Empirical Software Engineering by mining software repositories. He currently looks at how large language models will impact software development. 

Meng Xu, Assistant Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI

Meng Xu is an Assistant Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is also a member of the Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) group and the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (CPI).

Prof. Xu’s research is in the area of system and software security, with a focus on delivering high-quality solutions to practical security programs, especially in finding and patching vulnerabilities in critical computer systems. This usually includes research and development of automated program analysis / testing / verification tools that facilitate the security reasoning of critical programs.

Leah Zhang-Kennedy, Assistant Professor at Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, CPI

Leah Zhang-Kennedy is an Assistant Professor in interaction design and user experience (UX) research at the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, University of Waterloo.

She directs the Safe Interactions Lab, a research lab that aims to improve people’s technology experiences, knowledge, and  practices, focusing on computer security, online privacy, and digital literacy.

Prof. Zhang-Kennedy has a background in Computer Science (PhD), Human-Computer Interaction (MASc), and Graphic Design (BDes). 

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4:00pm - Panel on The Implications of Societal Surveillance on Individual Privacy

Moderator:

Diogo Barradas, Assistant Professor at David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, CPI

Diogo Barradas is an Assistant Professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, a member of the CrySP group, and Interim Associate Director of the Waterloo Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (CPI) since March 2024. He completed his PhD on Information Systems and Computer Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) - Universidade de Lisboa, under the kind supervision of Prof. Luís Rodrigues and Prof. Nuno Santos. During this time, Diogo conducted most of his research at the Distributed Systems Group at INESC-ID Lisboa but also had the chance to undertake a research internship at Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Prof. Nicolas Christin. In late 2021, Diogo become a post-doc at Rice University under the supervision of Prof. Ang Chen.

His track record counts over 25 peer-reviewed publications, including top venues for computer and communications security (IEEE S&P, ACM CCS, USENIX Security, NDSS), as well as other venues such as PETS, the world’s premier forum dedicated to computer privacy.

Prof. Barradas’ research is focused on network security and privacy, with particular emphasis on statistical traffic analysis and Internet censorship circumvention, with an additional interest in digital forensics.

Panelists:

Adam Molnar, Assistant Professor of Sociology & Legal Studies, CPI

Adam Molnar is an Assistant Professor of Sociology & Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo. His research integrates surveillance studies, computer science, and critical socio-legal studies to explore the development and implications of digital surveillance technologies. His work critically examines the design, use, and societal impacts of data-centric technological systems, focusing on issues related to digital harms, privacy, human rights, and politics.  Molnar’s interdisciplinary approach assesses how emerging digital technologies are regulated and explores alternative possibilities concerning ‘the politics of technology’.

He currently leads a research project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and The British Academy, examining the use of employee monitoring applications in Canada, the UK, and Europe. Additionally, his research also extends to the use, impacts, and governance of surveillance technologies in policing, intelligence, and national security.

Vance Lockton, Senior Technology Policy Advisor for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC)

Vance Lockton is the Senior Technology Policy Advisor for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC). In that role, he serves as a bridge between the OPC’s policy and technology analysis teams, examining the privacy impacts of emerging technologies. So far in 2024, his areas of focus have included artificial intelligence, online age assurance, digital identity, neurotechnology, and extended reality systems.

He has spent the majority of his career with Canada’s federal and provincial privacy regulators, with a brief break to develop a data governance framework for the proposed Quayside smart city project in Toronto. Vance also teaches ‘International Data Protection and Cybersecurity Frameworks’ for the Osgoode Professional LLM in Privacy and Cybersecurity. He holds Masters degrees in Computer Science (thesis topic: surveillance) and Public Policy (thesis topic: digital identity), as well as CIPP/C and CIPM certifications. 

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4:45pm - Networking Break

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5:30pm - End of Conference

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