Privacy mechanisms for health screenings

Context

In our Medical Information Technology (MIT) department, we are involved in various research projects on topics related to occupational health management.

The goal is to create a work environment and a corporate culture that supports the adoption of healthy behaviors by employees. For this reason, health screenings are often used in the workplace context, which record a variety of health values (e.g. depression risk, cardiovascular status, sleep disorders, posture, and sitting behavior) that can be derived from measured vital data. The use of health screenings in workplace health management has many benefits for both individual employees and the company (e.g. biofeedback on ergonomic behavior, burn-out and depression management, online health counseling on live data).

We are looking for support to develop and test privacy mechanisms (e.g. differential privacy) so that the recordings can be shared with the employer in a secure and non-person-identifying way.

Tasks

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• You will do a research in the field of anonymization methods and health applications.
• You will analyze currently scientifically discussed privacy mechanisms and security concepts.
• You will design how a method (e.g. differential privacy) can be combined with medically relevant evaluation methods.
• You will contribute to the prototypical implementation, so that the developed methods can be technically evaluated, as well as easily and comprehensibly regulated by users.
• You will support the improvement and further development of the prototype with suitable methods (e.g. Federated Machine Learning, Data Science, Data Modeling, Cybersecurity, Sensor Fusion).

Requirements

• You are studying electrical engineering, information technology or a comparable field (bachelor's or master's degree).
• You are interested in the topic and may have some experience with medical data and/or privacy mechanisms.
• You already have some practical experience in object-oriented programming languages (e.g. Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, C, etc.) or containerization tools (e.g. Docker).
• You possess an above-average level of initiative as well as a careful and conscientious approach to work.
• You are motivated and have very good communication skills.
• You have a good command of German and English, both written and spoken.