VinUniversity students participate in a research project related to privacy protection on autonomous vehicle systems
As the development and testing of self-driving car technology have progressed, autonomous vehicles are becoming massive data hubs that collect a wide variety of personal data related to the driver and all the subjects present in the car. Data such as speed, energy consumption, engine performance, location, driving habits, and objects detected in its surroundings will be processed, stored, and shared with different parties for various purposes, including driver profiling, traffic planning, safety improvement, and reduce accidents. Although publishing these data have enormous benefits, several privacy concerns arise as there is a lack of knowledge of how these data will be protected. Given this issue, Dr. Kok-Seng Wong, Associate Professor from the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS), conducts a research project on “Privacy-Preserving Data Publishing for Autonomous Vehicles.”
Five first-year CECS students (Vu Hong Phuc, Vu Truong Giang, Nguyen Thai Hung, Tran Huong Lan, and Nguyen Minh Tuan) join the project as a research assistant. Undergraduate students working on this project will primarily gain knowledge related to information security, data privacy, and data analytic. In particular, their works focusing on data anonymization techniques, secure two-party computation, applied cryptography, and federated learning. To enrich the students’ research experience, Dr. Kok-Seng Wong assigns the students various tasks, including reading research articles, individual presentations, and simulation implementation. Also, the research team discusses and shares ideas and opinions on different topics during the weekly meeting. Together with other independent-study first-year students (Le Hoang Vinh, Nguyen Hoang Thinh, Pham Quang Bach, and Pham Phuoc Minh Quang), they participate in a joint research seminar with researchers from Kazakhstan and Malaysia.
“Our works focus on data anonymization and cryptography via basic encryption schemes such as Paillier and El Gamal. To protect data privacy, the owners’ personal information is hidden, or encrypted with the owner-only access key.” – Thai Hung.
“Living in a world of technology, where personal information has become a commercialized product, I feel lucky to have this opportunity to address the data security issue comprehensively through my participation in this project with Dr. Kok-Seng Wong.” – Tran Lan Huong
Kok-Seng Wong holds a Ph.D. Degree from Soongsil University (South Korea), one of the leading universities in Computer Science. He has served as a faculty member and researcher in various universities worldwide, including Malaysia, South Korea, and Kazakhstan. To this end, he conducts research that spans the areas of security, privacy, and secret sharing. His ultimate research goal is to help users to protect their data privacy in this technology era.
Given the current student-to-faculty ratios of 6:1, VinUniversity students have opportunities to participate in research projects and scientific publications with our international experience faculty members. Currently, professors and other faculty members in VinUniversity conduct 20 ongoing research projects with the participation of first-year students.
