KEY TAKEAWAYS

• 
  Hours
  38 - 40 hr.
• 
  Salary indication
  Salary gross/monthly
  based on full-time
  € 2,901 - € 3,707
• 
  Deadline
  28 May 2025
  The increasing integration of data-intensive and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems into everyday life has made digital identity a pervasive and inescapable reality. Every time we engage in digital transactions—whether placing a food order or accessing an online service—we generate and share a wealth of personal data. This includes usernames, passwords, contact information, device identifiers, purchase history, and more. However, this growing reliance on digital identity raises pressing ethical, political, and legal questions: Who owns and controls our data? How should our digital and real-world identities be related? What kind of digital infrastructure is needed to regulate data flows in data spaces?
  At the heart of these issues lie tensions between the interests of individuals, states and supranational political unions, and private corporations. Two major approaches have emerged in response to these challenges. The first approach is the self-sovereign identity (SSI) model (Allen, 2016), which proposes a decentralized framework where individuals retain full control over their identity data, determining who can access it without reliance on central authorities such as governments, corporations, or platform providers (e.g., Google or Facebook). This model leverages cryptographic technologies—such as blockchain and W3C’s Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)—to enhance privacy, security, and user autonomy. While SSI is often championed by cyberlibertarians, it has also been defended on human rights and kantian ethical grounds, and may be compatible with less individualistic moral and political frameworks. The second approach focuses on strengthening political sovereignty over data flows, exemplified by the European Union’s push for European Data Spaces—regulated digital environments designed to facilitate a European Digital Single Market while safeguarding citizens’ rights and promoting economic and societal benefits. The EU increasingly supports both political sovereignty over data and self-sovereign identity, yet it remains unclear whether these two visions—centered on different loci of sovereignty—are fully compatible or whether they will ultimately serve the same ethical and political values.
  Doctoral Research Objectives
  The selected DC will explore these foundational questions by undertaking the following research objectives:

1. Conceptual Analysis of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI):

• Compare, categorize, and evaluate different conceptions of SSI as found in EU policy documents, scholarly literature, the private sector, and activist movements.
• Examine the underlying moral and political theories supporting different visions of SSI (e.g., libertarian, kantian, communitarian, republican, etc.).

1. Foresight Analysis of SSI and Emerging Data Governance Structures:

• Employ foresight methodologies (which the candidate will master at UT) to anticipate and classify potential risks to SSI arising from new data flows and technologies.
• Assess how the European Common Data Spaces—once implemented—may interact with, complement, or threaten the principles of SSI.

1. Development of an Anticipatory Ethical Framework (with a political philosophy component):

• Construct a normative framework for evaluating and resolving potential conflicts and trade-offs between:

Please refer the Job description for details