Privacy for DevOps

  • EMPRI-DEVOPS is a research project on privacy in the workplace of software developers and administrators (DevOps).

Project Quick Facts

Motivation

With the digitalisation of the workplace, more and more personal data is being generated that can be analysed by employers. This is also and especially true in the area of software development, where digitalisation is already well advanced. On the one hand, DevOps tools increase the efficiency of processes, but at the same time allow conclusions to be drawn about employee activities and personal behaviour, right up to the monitoring of performance. This is possible through the analysis of so-called metadata, i.e. digital traces that employees leave behind during their work.

Project Goals

The aim of our project is to develop concepts for data minimisation and demonstrate them using DevOps tools. We examine open-source and widely used tools with regard to accruing sensitive user data and their possible exploitation. With the involvement of stakeholders from business and employee representatives, we examine legitimate interests and develop technical and legal means to create an appropriate balance. The practical suitability of the means is demonstrated with selected open-source tools and evaluated in business games and workshops.

Funding

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding EMPRI-DEVOPS within the framework of the call Privacy and Informational Self-Determination in the Digital World of Work. The project has a volume of €1.26 million. The BMBF is providing 82% of the funding. The funding initally ran for three years. The project started on November 1st 2018. After a cost-neutral extension of 9 months, the project funding will end on July 31st 2022.

Project Partners

EMPRI-DEVOPS brings together partners from academia, consulting and public agencies. Find out more.

Latest Posts

Read more

Paper about the demand of timestamp precision at IFIP SEC 2022

on 8. June 2022

The project is also represented at this year’s IFIP SEC conference by Christian Burkert with the paper “Data Minimisation Potential for Timestamps in Git: An Empirical Analysis of User Configurations”.

Continue reading

Read more

Paper about privacy-friendly timestamp alternatives at GI Sicherheit 2022

on 7. April 2022

At the conference GI Sicherheit 2022 in Karlsruhe, Christian Burkert presents the paper “PrivacyDates: A Framework for More Privacy-Preserving Timestamp Data Types”.

Continue reading

Read more

Announcing GI WebTalk: Gläserne Software-Entwickler*innen

on 10. March 2022

On March 21st from 6 p.m., we will be discussing the impact of digital working environments on employee privacy. The discussion is hosted by the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI) in the WebTalk series. See here for the event announcement.

Continue reading

Read more

Toolkit for more privacy-preserving dates in apps released

on 22. February 2022

EMPRI-DEVOPS studies have repeatedly found that tools often use timestamps unnecessarily and in excessive precision. Today we release django-privacydates, a demonstrator for more privacy-preserving date alternatives for the Django web framework.

Continue reading