Interview: Meet the UtiP-DAM team!

UtiP-DAM

The Correlation Systems team is a highly skilled and multidisciplinary group, comprising project managers, data scientists, sensor developers, and backend and frontend developers. Together, they leverage years of collaboration and experience in problem-solving, research, and development to tackle complex challenges. Currently, the team is focused on the UtiP-DAM project, which addresses the critical issue of data privacy in smart cities and edge computing. In this interview, the team discusses the development of UtiP-DAM, how TrustChain has supported their growth, and the innovative privacy-enhancing technologies they are pioneering for decentralized data management.

Can you briefly present your team?

The Correlation Systems team is a seasoned, multidisciplinary group composed of project managers, data scientists, sensor developers, backend developers, and frontend developers. With years of collaborative experience, the team excels in problem-solving and research and development initiatives.

How did you come up with this project idea and what benefits will it bring to the end users?

Our customers, primarily cities, expressed a desire to share their collected data publicly as open data. However, concerns about privacy led many to hesitate releasing raw data, which is valuable for training AI systems.

How is TrustChain supporting your growth and what role does it play for the next steps in your development?

Our company’s primary objective is customer satisfaction. TrustChain empowers us to deliver solutions that enhance our customers’ use of our systems and facilitate their achievement of internal KPI goals. We anticipate this will drive increased sales in the future.

Why did you apply to the TrustChain call and has your vision changed since then?

We are applying to TrustChain due to the growing importance of distributed data privacy within our internal research and development efforts. As customers increasingly adopt edge computing, data privacy becomes a distributed processing challenge, particularly in the face of attacks that leverage data from multiple edge sensors.

What is the most valuable takeout from the TrustChain project and why was the topic of the Open Call important to you/your team?

Our key achievement in TrustChain is a novel method enabling distributed edge devices to securely share data without compromising original data privacy. Directly aligned with the Open Call topic, this method facilitates data sharing among multiple edge sensors while ensuring the anonymity of the original data. Even if an individual gains access to data received from device A, they will be unable to trace it back to the device itself.

Did you establish collaboration with any of the TrustChain teams or plan for any kind of synergies? If yes, what is the biggest potential in such collaborations?

We collaborated with the SURE team on a shared objective: protecting personal data while enabling raw data sharing. Although the SURE team pursued a synthetic data-based approach, our evaluation revealed that this method, while promising, falls short of addressing the complexities of our specific problem. In fact, for our use case, synthetic data would significantly diminish the value of the raw data.

What are your expectations regarding the TrustChain software ecosystem and its contribution to the NGI priority areas?

NGI’s paramount focus is on decentralization and trust, essential components of a human-centric internet that grants users complete control over their personal data. Building upon the GDPR’s framework, our innovative “Fine Me Here” function addresses a key challenge: enabling users to maintain full control of their personal data while remaining anonymous.

To further support this objective, we’re developing privacy-enhancing technologies for decentralized data management. Our project empowers cities to minimize data collection and enhance anonymization capabilities, ultimately benefiting citizens.

What are the next steps for your team?

We are integrating Utip-DAM into our forthcoming line of fully edge-enabled, mobility-focused sensors. These sensors will feature embedded access to the Utip-DAM dashboard for optional data sharing, as well as a compatible interface with Mobility Data Space, a Gaya-X lighthouse project.