Ensuring Consent and Revocation: Towards a Taxonomy of Consent

Nick Papanikolaou ( University of Warwick )

In this talk we will present the aims and objectives of EnCoRe, a large-scale multidisciplinary research project in e-security which is concerned with privacy controls for personal information. As the Internet continues to grow as the principal means of communication for many individuals, businesses, government bodies and institutions, there is an increasing need for secure means of sharing personal data. At present there is no uniform mechanism enabling a user to control the way in which such data is shared, stored and distributed. In particular, there is no commonly accepted framework or standard defining a means of granting consent to share data while guaranteeing that this consent can be revoked fully or partially at any time. EnCoRe is concerned with just this issue, and we will consider the relevant motivation, open problems, and wider implications for society. We will discuss the involvement of the e-Security Group at the International Digital Laboratory (University of Warwick) in this programme and present some work in progress on developing a classification and formalisation of the notion of consent. Examples of practical systems involving the granting and revocation of consent will be used to illustrate the concepts and technologies which this work aims to deliver. This is joint work with Sadie Creese and Michael Goldsmith.