Enhancing transparency, inclusion, and privacy for financial and democratic technologies

拟议的研究计划是研究具有三个子主题的透明度增强技术：(1)中央银行数字货币（CDBC），(2)去中心化金融（DeFi）和(3)端到端可验证（E2E）投票系统。我们寻求在科学质量、与政府和行业的相关性和加强互动以及培训能力增长的基础上产生高影响。这个项目的长期目标是产生新技术，确认一组共同的属性，并沿着相同的参数不断分析其他被提议的系统（包括学术、政府和工业）：透明度：该技术是否通过提供审计和验证其行为的能力来证明它本身是安全的？隐私：该技术是否保护了个人身份信息，是否为其收集的信息提供了清晰的心理模型，是否获得了有意义的用户同意？包容性：该技术是否促进了公共利益，增加了对弱势群体的包容，并符合残疾人的无障碍标准？有用性：这项技术是否有一个经过深思熟虑的目标用户群，是否为他们解决了一个真正的问题，是否提供了一个易于使用的界面，是否潜在地促进了商业利益？第一个副主题是中央银行数字货币（cbdc），这是包括加拿大银行在内的世界各国中央银行正在认真考虑的数字货币（如最近关于该主题的数十份报告所示）。该研究计划将研究cbdc的设计格局，旨在促进对无银行账户的金融包容性，并通过加密技术通过执法来平衡用户隐私和可追溯性的冲突要求。企业家们一直在悄无声息地在以太坊（Ethereum）这个公共平台上重塑金融服务。第二个子主题2检查了这些工具的安全性评估，增加了金融包容性，为个人DeFi服务和组合建模消费者风险，并通过设计隐私重新设计这些服务。我们在了解低层区块链细节如何过滤并以不利的方式影响设计，以及我们如何在保留目标服务的财务需求的同时绕过这些限制进行设计方面具有专业知识。最后，我们的研究项目还将设计新的可验证的投票系统，包括在线投票。虽然乍一看，这个主题似乎是脱节的，但选举是隐私和第三方验证之间的另一种平衡行为。事实上，将密码学应用于数字现金和投票的历史始于40年前的同一位研究人员（David Chaum），从那时起，这项研究就与许多重叠的原语和协议交织在一起。该计划考虑了残疾人的无障碍问题，并解决了网上投票时的强制问题。

The proposed research program is to study transparency-enhancing technologies with three sub-themes: (1) central bank digital currency (CDBC), (2) decentralized finance (DeFi), and (3) end-to-end verifiable (E2E) voting systems. We seek high impact based on scientific quality, relevance to and enhanced interactions with government and industry, and growth in training capacity. The long-term objective of this program is to produce new technologies that affirm a common set of properties, and to continually analyze other proposed systems (including academic, government, and industry) along the same parameters: Transparency: does the technology demonstrate for itself that it is secure by offering the ability to audit and verify its behaviour? Privacy: does the technology protect personally identifiable information, offer a clear mental model of the information it collects, and obtain meaningful user consent? Inclusion: Does the technology advance the public interest, increase inclusion with disadvantaged groups, and meet accessibility standards for persons with disabilities? Usefullness: Does the technology have a well-thought-out target user group, solve a real problem for them, present an easy-to-use interface, and potentially advance commercial interests? The first sub-theme is central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which are digital currencies under serious consideration by central banks around the world, including the Bank of Canada (as exemplified by dozens of recent reports on the topic). This research program will examine the design landscape of CBDCs, designs to advance financial inclusion to the unbanked, and balancing the conflicting requirements of user privacy and traceability by law enforcement through cryptographic techniques. Somewhat quietly, entrepreneurs have been reinventing financial services on the public blockchain Ethereum. The second sub-theme 2 examines security evaluation of these tools, increasing financial inclusion, modelling consumer risk for individual DeFi services and compositions, and redesigning these services with privacy-by-design. We have expertise in understanding how low-level blockchain details can filter up and impact the design in adverse ways, and how we can design around these limitations while preserving the financial requirements of the targeted service. Finally our research program will also design new verifiable voting systems, including online voting. While at first glance, this subject might seem disjointed, elections are another balancing act between privacy and third party verification. In fact, the history of applying cryptography to digital cash and to voting starts with the same researcher four decades ago (David Chaum) and the research has been intertwined since with many overlapping primitives and protocols. The program considers questions of accessibility to persons with disabilities and resolving issues of coercion when votes are cast online.