My name is Sid Rao and I am one of the course staff. I am a public interest technologist, and security and privacy researcher at Aalto University and Nokia- Bell Labs.
My research covers a wide range of security and privacy issues that naturally exposes me to the transdisciplinary world where technology meets society, policies, ethics, and law. As a public interest technologist, I have been actively involved with advocacy for digital rights and Internet freedoms theme in the past decade. This includes my Ford-Mozilla fellowship at European Digital Rights (EDRi) where I worked with lawyers, sociologists, politicians, policymakers, and lobbyists from the Brussels bubble towards bringing practical understanding to European political debate around data protection, surveillance, copyright, and net neutrality.
I collaborate with various NGOs that works on societal issues advocating for the rights of minorities and underrepresented communities representation of the immigrants and global south. This includes producing awareness materials (such as the Ethical Web Dev guide), uncovering unethical espionage and surveillance of digital rights activists or participating in grassroots campaigns.
I am currently wrapping up my PhD thesis in the Secure Systems group of Aalto University, Finland. As part of the Erasmus Mundus NordSecMob (now, SECCLO) program I hold double master degrees (from Aalto University and the University of Tartu, Estonia) with specialization in information and network security, and cryptography.
Critical AI & Data Justice in Society 