Carmela Troncoso

Carmela Troncoso is a Research Professor and Scientific Director at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP), leading the SPRING (Security and Privacy Engineering) Lab. Her work focuses on developing privacy-preserving technologies, particularly in digital systems impacting societal well-being. She spearheaded the DP-3T protocol for the SwissCovid app, ensuring user privacy during the pandemic. She collaborates with organizations like the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to create secure data-sharing tools and with the Red Cross to integrate privacy safeguards in humanitarian aid distribution.

Her research critically evaluates emerging technologies, such as synthetic data and decentralized machine learning, to assess their privacy implications. She advocates for ethical tech deployment, addressing risks of misuse in areas like child abuse material detection via client-side scanning. Troncoso emphasizes public education on technology’s societal impacts, balancing innovation with human rights protection.