SURF Security & Privacy Conference
At the SURF Security & Privacy Conference, you will hear all about current security and privacy topics in education and research. The focus is on technical, policy and legal aspects. In 2025, we are guests of Zadkine mbo, Rotterdam.
- Zadkine mbo, Benthemplein 15, 3032 CC Rotterdam
Keynotes SURF Security & Privacy Conference
Curious about the keynote speakers' stories? This is what you can expect:
AI and ethics in times of geopolitical tensions
As AI develops at a rapid pace and Big Tech increasingly concentrates power, Europe faces a fundamental choice: how do we deal with AI in times of geopolitical tensions? What does it mean to be dependent on US technology? Can we even build European alternatives, now that the AI regulation has stricter requirements than elsewhere in the world?
In this keynote, Ajuna Soerjadi shows what it means not to be compliance-focused, but from a data ethics perspective, to give practical and concrete substance to the leadership we can show. Right now, precisely with the AI act, there is an opportunity for Europe to grow towards digital autonomy and to be at the forefront of genuinely responsible AI.
About Ajuna Soerjadi
Ajuna Soerjadi has a background in philosophy and specialised in the ethics of AI. As founder of the Expertise Centre for Data Ethics, she helps government organisations use AI responsibly through training in data ethics and AI literacy. She is senior researcher on Algorithms and Discrimination at the State Commission on Discrimination and Racism. She has also been a privacy officer in special education. She won this year's Responsible AI award from Women in AI Benelux, was voted one of the global 100 brilliant women in AI ethics last year, and she was voted the first Young Thinker of the Fatherland in 2017 for her talent in making complex philosophical and social topics accessible to wide audiences. She is eager to push for a world where AI is in line with our shared values so that everyone can reap the benefits of AI.
Bart Preneel - The Crypto-War Without End
Bart Preneel, COSIC KU Leuven
The crypto wars reflect an ongoing conflict: governments wanting access to encrypted data for security and detection, versus the interests of individual and collective privacy.
Besides a brief historical overview - such as the obstruction of cryptography research and the increasing use of spyware (such as from the NSO Group) - the focus is on client-side scanning. This involves scanning communications before encryption or immediately after decryption on the device. While this is presented as a tool against child abuse material (CSAM), it is also being considered for fighting terrorism and organised crime.
This technique undermines end-to-end encryption, is easy to circumvent and prone to abuse. Its effectiveness is highly questionable. Perceptual hash functions - essential to detect CSAM without revealing its contents - have been found to have large error rates. All current methods suffer from many false positives as well as negatives.
New proposals call on AI to recognise (even AI-generated) CSAM, but the reliability is uncertain. Investigative agencies already possess a lot of metadata, biometrics and camera images, which increases risks of misuse. The focus should shift to better cybersecurity, more transparency and a broad debate on security versus fundamental rights.
About Bart Preneel
Prof Bart Preneel is a professor at KU Leuven where he leads the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography (COSIC) research group. His research focuses on applied cryptography, cybersecurity and privacy. He also regularly advises industry and government and is, among other things, a member of the advisory group of ENISA (EU Cybersecurity Agency).
Keynote Martin de Vries
Strong together: How our university defied the cyber attack
The cyber-attack that hit our university on 11 January 2025 could fortunately be repelled through swift and alert action. This presentation will provide insights into the cyber attack itself, how we experienced those first hours and what lessons we learned.
About Martin de Vries
Martin is an experienced Information Security Professional with a background in Project Management, Service Management and Innovation. In 2021, he joined Eindhoven University of Technology as Chief Information Security Officer. In this role, he helps the university achieve secure, state-of-the-art and innovative digital facilities to meet the university's strategy. As digitalisation involves risks, he ensures that these are assessed and addressed in the context of the university's overall risk profile.
Keynote Reijer Passchier - The curse of Big Tech
In recent decades, some very large and powerful tech companies, big tech, have emerged. Increasingly, these companies threaten not only specific democratic and rule-of-law values, such as citizens' privacy, non-discrimination and free competition in the economy, but also the more general constitutional structures that enable the protection of such values in the first place. Think of the strong, 'sovereign' state or union of states, the distinction between public and private, citizenship and vibrant civil society. How did this happen? And is there still a way back? These pressing questions are the focus of Reijer Passchier's lecture.
About Reijer Passchier
Prof Reijer Passchier is Professor of Digitalisation and the Democratic Rule of Law at the Open University and Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at Leiden University. He previously worked for the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and Tilburg University. His books include Artificial Intelligence and the Rule of Law (Boom 2021) and The Curse of Big Tech (Boom 2024). Reijer regularly lectures, contributes to the public debate, advised the Senate and the House of Representatives, among others, and thought along with numerous organisations on the impact of technology.