On April 29, 2024, Raúl Casanova defended his PhD thesis entitled “Privacy-enhancing technologies and privacy-enhancing cryptography for wearables” under the supervision of Michel Gould and Joaquín Torres along with Brno University of Technology professor Jan Hajný. This thesis is part of the cohort of ESR from the European Joint Doctorate Marie Sklodowska-Curie in A Network for Dynamic Wearable Applications with Privacy Constraints (A-WEAR).

Raúl’s work proposed cryptographic methods with Java Cards and closely collaborated with Pavel Pascacio on topics related to collaborative indoor positioning.

In particular, Raul examined the effectiveness and scalability of attribute-based anonymous credentialing schemes for ensuring user authenticity and security within dynamic wearable device architectures, exploring improvements to these schemes, with a primary focus on incorporating user revocation while maintaining privacy.

In the experimental settings, Raúl’s work focused on novel mechanisms to enable attribute-based authentication protocols on smart cards with limited support for elliptic curve cryptography, implementing them in resource-constrained environments, with an emphasis on Internet of Things devices, and evaluates their feasibility within the dynamic architectures of wearable devices.

Overall, Raúl provided a number of solutions well beyond the state-of-the-art in the field of privacy technologies and cryptography for wearables. You deserve it!