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

拟议的研究计划是研究增强安全性的技术，包括三个子主题：（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。我们寻求基于科学质量的高影响力，与政府和行业的相关性和增强的互动，以及培训能力的增长。该计划的长期目标是开发新技术，确认一组共同的属性，并继续分析其他拟议的系统（包括学术界，政府和行业）沿着相同的参数：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自己是安全的？隐私权：该技术是否保护个人身份信息，提供其收集的信息的清晰心智模型，并获得有意义的用户同意？入选：该技术是否促进了公共利益，增加了弱势群体的包容性，并符合残疾人的无障碍标准？丰满度：这项技术是否有一个经过深思熟虑的目标用户群，为他们解决了一个真实的问题，提供了一个易于使用的界面，并潜在地提高了商业利益？第一个子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（最近数十份关于该主题的报告就是例证）。该研究计划将研究CBDC的设计环境，旨在将金融包容性推向无银行账户的人，并通过加密技术平衡执法部门对用户隐私和可追溯性的冲突要求。有些悄悄地，企业家们一直在公共区块链以太坊上重塑金融服务。第二个分主题2研究了这些工具的安全评估，增加金融包容性，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。我们拥有专业知识，可以了解低级别区块链细节如何过滤并以不利的方式影响设计，以及我们如何在设计这些限制的同时保留目标服务的财务要求。最后，我们的研究计划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，这个主题似乎脱节，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（大卫·乔姆），此后的研究一直与许多重叠的原语和协议交织在一起。该方案考虑了残疾人无障碍问题和解决在线投票时的胁迫问题。

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.