Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering
Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering

TITAN

Trusted envIronments for confidenTiAl computiNg and secure data sharing

The project "TITAN - Trusted envIronments for confidenTiAl computiNg and secure data sharing" will enrich the interoperability framework (IF) of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) with a software platform solution for confidential data collaboration and secure and privacy-preserving data processing. The platform will enable access to sensitive data sets from public institutions and government agencies and will be compatible with the EOSC IF on a technical, semantic, organizational and legal level. To encourage community adoption of TITAN's open source software artifacts, the solution will be demonstrated in practice in several vertical cross-border scenarios - particularly in the public administration and healthcare sectors.

The challenge

Access to highly sensitive datasets from government agencies and public and private institutions and the availability of this data through the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) are essential for maintaining European scientific excellence in the relevant projects pre-defined by the European Commission. European governments and public institutions are global leaders in data regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and emerging regulations focused on the protection of critical infrastructure and the emerging data market. Despite regulatory pressure, there are important security risks associated with the storage and sharing of sensitive data, including the risk of unauthorized information access, theft or manipulation. Hostile entities seek to gain access to sensitive information and misuse it for the identification of individuals, industrial and scientific espionage or other malicious purposes. Cross-organizational and cross-border data sharing in compliance with the GDPR is increasingly difficult as the collection of granular, multidimensional personal data meets enhanced record linking capabilities. In addition, transdisciplinary standards and incompatible national laws also hinder data sharing in interdisciplinary research.

TITAN extends the EOSC with a software platform solution to ensure confidential data collaboration and secure and protective data processing. The solution will enable access to sensitive datasets from public institutions and government agencies and will be compatible with the EOSC interoperability framework on a technical, semantic, organizational and legal level. To encourage community adoption of TITAN's open source software artifacts, the solution will be demonstrated in practice in several vertical cross-border scenarios - particularly in public administration and healthcare.

TITAN innovations include confidential data processing based on modern and efficient hardware-accelerated secure enclaves, so-called "Trusted Execution Environments". These are capable of ensuring a true, secure end-to-end data lifecycle. In addition, the solution includes reliable data anonymization and scalable and fine-grained decentralized blockchain-based access control.

 

Our contribution

We at Fraunhofer ISST support the technical requirements analysis and conceptual design of data room solutions with our technical know-how and scientific expertise.

This includes:

  • Information on open source building blocks from the Gaia-X AISBL, the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) and the Data Spaces Support Center (DSSC)
  • Requirements for open source components and software security guarantees
  • Architectural aspects related to open source building blocks for data spaces
  • Research expertise in security architectures and quality assurance

 

Results

TITAN aims to ensure continued European scientific research excellence by enabling a new paradigm of secure access to sensitive public data and applications in line with the EOSC IF.

A key prerequisite is the understanding and integration of data protection laws at both national and European level to allow access to sensitive data. The creation of a novel platform for secure end-to-end data sharing and collaboration requires an improvement of network security, distributed access control, security domain segmentation, state-of-the-art data protection application for data in use as well as usable and scalable data anonymization. TITAN will publish the final project services in the EOSC catalog to ensure use by practitioners and to practically validate compatibility with existing federated infrastructures and resources.

 

Partners

  • Universidad de Murcia
  • Fujitsu Technology Solutions (Luxembourg) SA
  • Privredno Drustvo Zentrix Lab Drustvo SA Ogranicenom Odgovornoscu Pancevo
  • Canary Bit AB
  • Ultraviolet Consult Doo
  • F6S Network Ireland Limited
  • ITA-Suomen Yliopisto
  • Odysseus Data Services SRO
  • Trilateral Research Limited
  • Charité - Universitätsmiedizin Berlin
  • Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale
  • Sociedad Aragonesa de Gestion Agroambiental SL
  • Veneto Region
  • Universität Koblenz
  • Instituto Tecnologico de Aragon
  • Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Funding

  • European Research Executive Agency
  • Funding codes: 101129822, HORIZON-INFRA-2023-EOSC-01-06
  • Duration: 02/2024-01/2027