Prof Utz Roedig CSIT CONNECT researcher wins SFI Frontiers for the Future awards

4 Nov 2020

Prof. Utz Roedig was one of three CONNECT researchers to have received funding in SFI’s Frontiers for the Future programme announced by Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris, TD.

The funded projects are among 71 grants valued at €53 million to support frontiers research across 12 Higher Education Institutions through Science Foundation Ireland.

Prof. Utz Roedig, CONNECT Principal Investigator at University College Cork, won funding for his work on the security and privacy of personal voice assistants. Describing the project, Utz said:

“Personal Voice Assistants (PVAs) such as Amazon Echo, Siri or Google Home are now commonplace and are increasingly used for interaction with phones, tablets, PCs and smart environments such as automated homes or cars. PVAs collect sensitive information such as conversations and sound cues and are used to access important computer systems requiring access control. This research project advances our understanding of security and privacy issues in the PVA context. We develop methods that allow us to use PVAs securely and in such a way that our privacy concerns are respected.”