2023 Research Review
Our top articles of the year
Our election experts were busy this year writing papers, crafting blog articles, attending events, and collaborating on projects. Let’s take a look at what they got up to through a review of some of our favorite articles from the last 12 months:
Personal Data Protection Regulation and International Transfers
Adrià Rodríguez-Pérez (PhD), Senior Public Policy Researcher
Increasingly, data protection regulations impose restrictions on where data can be processed. Be it as part of a law, a contractual obligation, or a technical requirement, it is common that personal data cannot leave a territory, a country, or a region.
This article explores current state of transatlantic personal data transfers between Europe and the United States, focusing specifically on GDPR.
Online Voting in Switzerland
Tamara Finogina (PhD), Cryptography Researcher
Switzerland is a unique country in the world of voting for many reasons. First, unlike any other country where voting happens rarely (for example, once every 4 years), Switzerland holds elections 4 to 5 times a year. Second, most citizens vote remotely — according to the Federal Chancellery, about 95% of all votes are cast via the postal channel. Third, in general, the population is widely in favor of online voting.
In this post, Tamara examines the history of online voting use in Switzerland and discusses the recent trials that have begun once again in the country.
Digital Democracy and Online Voting for Sustainable Elections
Jordi Cucurull (PhD), Cryptography Researcher
Traditional paper-based elections require many resources that result in significant CO2 emissions and waste that can end up into the environment. The use of digital technologies can greatly decrease the impact of elections and make them more sustainable.
Here, Jordi studies the factors of traditional elections that pose a threat to the environment and analyzes how digital democracy and online voting can help make elections more sustainable.
Council of Europe’s Conference on E-voting and Use of ICT in Elections
Adrià Rodríguez-Pérez (PhD), Senior Public Policy Researcher
In June of this year, Scytl was invited to attend the Council of Europe’s Conference on “E-voting and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in elections: taking stock and moving forward”. We had the opportunity to share our insights in the context of a debate on “Tackling challenges related to implementation of e-voting solutions”.
How to Hold Fully Digital Elections
Jake Mahr (PhD), Content & Marketing Executive
In October, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) made history by becoming the first country in the world to hold a “fully digital” election. But what exactly does that mean, and can other countries do the same?
Jake examines the ins and outs of the recent UAE elections and discusses what they might mean for the future of election innovation.
Cryptographic Key Management for Online Voting
Núria Costa (PhD), Cryptography Researcher
Cryptographic keys are crucial elements when talking about the security of online voting systems. Sensitive operations such as signing ballots require these keys in order to be executed, so if they become compromised, they could endanger the entire security of an online voting system.
In this article, Núria explores the importance of properly defining and documenting how these keys are managed throughout their lifecycle, including how they are generated, protected, stored, used, and destroyed.
mGov4EU’s Pilot Project at Tartu University
Jordi Cucurull (PhD), Cryptography Researcher
As part of the final phases of EU-funded project mGov4EU, our team and fellow collaborators conducted a series of pilots to demonstrate the technology that has been implemented during the project.
At Scytl, as online voting experts, we performed an online voting pilot together with a partner at the University of Tartu, in Estonia. In this article, Jordi explores the first phase of this pilot, and the lessons learned from it.
Coercion-Resistant Cast-as-Intended Verifiability in Electronic Voting Systems
Tamara Finogina (PhD), Cryptography Researcher
Towards the end of this year, our Cryptography Researcher Tamara Finogina successfully defended her PhD thesis. She wrote this article about it:
“Coercion-resistant cast-as-intended verifiability in electronic voting systems” aims to find out how we can provide coercion-resistant cast-as-intended verification. The thesis contributions can be roughly divided into three parts: (1) study in the standard settings, (2) exploration of post-quantum cryptography, and (3) practical constructions and search for the limitations of both properties.
E-Vote-ID 2023: Eighth International Joint Conference on Electronic Voting
Finally, a number of our team members attended the annual E-Vote-ID conference this year, presenting papers and posters. This included a discussion on the impacts of quantum computing on long-term privacy, a look at how international standards on digital election technologies are determined, and a summary of our participation in the SOTERIA H2020 Project.
