The National Science Foundation (NSF) https://www.nsf.gov has announced an investment of $25.4 million to advance ambitious research and scale projects in cybersecurity and privacy.
The “Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program” is one of NSF’s largest research programs that supports cybersecurity research across the country.
One area that is being addressed is how to secure the future of computing for marginalized and vulnerable populations as these populations have unique security and privacy needs, concerns, and capabilities that are underserved, leaving them at risk for harm.
According to Kevin Butler PI on the project, and a Professor in University of Florida’s Department of Computer & Information Science (CISE), “After studying the situation, it was soon evident that low socioeconomic status defendants, without access to Zoom and only able to call into the courtroom by phone, overwhelmingly lost their cases and never saw the judge throughout the process.”
To find solutions on how to design Computing for Marginalized and Vulnerable Populations, NSF issued a recent contract award to the University of Florida. This project seeks to change how security and privacy in computing is approached in order to make centering the needs of marginalized and vulnerable populations the norm.
The researchers will use the resources of the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research at the University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.
First, researchers will focus on several major themes:
- Assess the security and privacy needs of marginalized and vulnerable populations by researching quantitative and qualitative human-centered research methods and obtain direct community input to address the unique challenges and needs of different populations
- Inform and co-create solutions that intersect with current and emerging technologies by identifying how technology can be leveraged or reimagined to address these needs through methodologies that consider security and privacy goals for systems and data
- Systematize and apply foundational design principles by synthesizing lessons and experiences from the previous two areas to support integrating security, privacy, and safety needs of marginalized and vulnerable populations into future technology design and research
Principal Investigator is Kevin Butler at butler@cise.ufl.edu