Ed Vaizey, Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, has confirmed that the University of Warwick is one of nine leading UK universities in the PETRAS consortium which will work together over the next three years to explore critical issues in privacy, ethics, trust, reliability, acceptability, and security.
Funding for the hub includes a £9.8m grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which will be boosted by partner contributions.
The project is part of IoTUK, an integrated £40m, three-year, Government programme that seeks to advance the UK’s global leadership in IoT and increase the adoption of high quality IoT technologies and services throughout businesses and the public sector.
The hub is a consortium of nine leading universities including the University of Warwick, UCL, Imperial College London, the University of Oxford, Lancaster University, the University of Southampton, the University of Surrey, the University of Edinburgh and Cardiff University.
The hub will draw in substantial support and leverage from over 47 partners from industry and the public sector.
Carsten Maple, Professor of Cyber Systems Engineering in the WMG Cyber Security Centre at the University of Warwick (pictured), will lead on the hub’s privacy and trust research theme.
He said: “The significant data generated by, and used within, the Internet of Things compels us to thoroughly understand privacy, trust, and ethical issues. We need to examine how data is stored, transmitted and used to ensure that privacy is maintained.
“If consumer and industry trust in the Internet of Things is diminished, there will be a great loss to business and society. How we address consent, privacy and protection issues will be vital to ensuring that the internet of things develops in way that is both acceptable and beneficial to us all.”
