Wearables That Snitch on Us

The BCS Edinburgh Branch Sidney Michaelson Memorial Lecture (about Sidney Michaelson)

In partnership with the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

Monday 3rd April 2017, 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm

Speaker: Dr Paul Patras, The University of Edinburgh

Venue: Main Hall, Summerhall, Summerhall Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1QH.

Tickets for this event must be purchased from the EISF here

Synopsis

Over 250 million activity tracking wristbands, smart watches and personal health monitors will be in use by 2020. But given the rapid pace at which new wearables are launched and the predominantly wireless communications with their users, privacy concerns arise. Join expert in wireless networks Dr Paul Patras as he discusses the surveillance risks to which wearables are exposed, the challenges of preserving user privacy and some simple steps that could be taken to avoid tracking...

About the speaker

Dr Paul Patras is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) and Chancellor's Fellow in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Institute for Computing Systems Architecture (ICSA). He is also affiliated to the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Pervasive Parallelism and the Informatics Security & Privacy group. Previously, he was a research fellow at the Hamilton Institute of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Between 2007–2011 he was a research assistant at IMDEA Networks (Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Networks) and in 2010 was a visiting researcher in the Networks Group at Rice University, Houston, USA.

Dr Paul Patras holds a Ph.D. and a M.Sc. in Telematics Engineering from University Carlos III of Madrid, and a Dipl.Eng. degree from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Dr Paul Patras' research seeks to bridge the gap between fundamental mathematical models and real-world applications of computer networks. He focuses on problems related to performance optimisation in wireless networks, network protocols and architectures, mobile traffic analysis, security and privacy, prototyping and test beds.