CANVAS is the first project that provides an integrative view on the ethical and regulatory issues of cybersecurity. CANVAS unified technology developers with legal and ethical scholar and social scientists to approach the challenge how cybersecurity can be aligned with European values and fundamental rights.

The project brought together stakeholders from key areas of the European Digital Agenda – the health system, business/​finance, and law enforcement/​national security – for discussing challenges and solutions when aligning cybersecurity with ethics. In this way, CANVAS has identified several gaps with respect to ethical research and European cybersecurity regulation that need to be addressed. In 14 workshops, CANVAS has unified several dozen experts of cybersecurity with a particular focus on non-technical aspects. This expert pool provides a resource for future projects that want to focus on responsible research and innovation in cybersecurity. Through its teaching material, CANVAS provides the foundation that the future generation of cybersecurity experts obtains basic insights and knowledge on how to tackle ethical and legal dilemmas in cybersecurity.

CANVAS consists of 8 WPs in total.

WPs 1-4: Their main function is to consolidate existing knowledge in the domains of ethics, law, empirical (sociological), and technological research related to cybersecurity.

WPs 6-8: They aim to create the three main output deliverables of CANVAS (Briefing Packages, Reference Curriculum, MOOC).

WP 5: This is the integrating unit that includes community built-up and workshop organization. It includes all relevant management procedures and is led by the coordinating institution (University of Zurich).