Brussels / 3 & 4 February 2024

schedule

Let's talk Matrix between Governments and Citizens


Large companies in the IT and banking industry typically build their own custom apps to communicate with their customers, often storing unencrypted customer data on their backend servers.

While it may be acceptable for companies to store data in unencrypted form on a company's server, governments have a greater responsibility for their citizens' data.

You are free to use private sector offers or not. In contrast, public administration has a de facto monopoly on many services that require social, medical and other information that is vulnerable to stigmatization.

Some governments have created their own custom-built solutions where communication takes place via insecure services with no end-to-end-encryption in place.

The German identity system BundID, for example, contains a communication component that stores unencrypted messages on central servers. This poses a major risk to privacy in the event of IT security incidents.

If all goes well, Germany's infrastructure might get an upgrade and will use Matrix as its new communication protocol in the future (see https://gitlab.opencode.de/fitko/rueckkanal-ueber-messengerdienste)

In this talk, I would like to discuss the benefits and need for an open, end-to-end-encrypted messaging protocol for building secure (cross-border) communication platforms for the public administration. Let's explore the challenges and requirements for Matrix-based Government-to-Citizen (G2C) communication!

Speakers

Photo of Marco Marco

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