Research Directions
To meet our scientific objectives, the research has been organized around three main directions:
- Embedded Data Management: the
objective is to design core DB techniques (Storage & indexing,
query and transaction processing) taking into account the main
constraints of the embedded world, namely scarce RAM resource,
electronic stable storage and co-design considerations. This action
contributes to answering question Q1 (How to make powerful data management techniques compatible with highly constrained hardware platforms?).
- Access and Usage Control Models: this
action tackles the part of question Q2 (How to make smart objects less intrusive?), which is related to the
definition of privacy policies. The focus is on the semantic of the
privacy models rather than on the enforcement of the corresponding
policies.
- Tamper-resistant Data Management: this
action studies how tamper-resistant hardware can be exploited to
enforce access and usage control with strong security guarantees.
Hence, it tackles the second part of question Q2. Combined with
embedded data management techniques and cryptographic protocols, the
studied mechanisms represent building blocks to design solutions
answering question Q3 (How to build privacy-by-design architectures based on trusted smart objects?).
Besides these research actions, we put a significant effort in field
experiments with the double objective of validating academic results
and of contributing to applications having societal impact (see our
prototypes and contracts).