Privacy Protectors

SIV Privacy Protectors resemble current election observers, but can greatly enhance the overall security and trustworthiness of online voting systems.

Privacy Protectors' Roles

Privacy Protectors play a crucial role in specific steps of the SIV protocol, particularly Steps 4 & 5, which involve the anonymization and subsequent verifiable shuffle of encrypted votes.

As a summary, in Step 4, voters' identities are de-linked from their encrypted votes by first removing the Voter Auth Tokens from the list of encrypted votes. Privacy Protector #1 then shuffles the votes, randomizing their order to anonymize them. However, since encryption data is still distinguishable, Privacy Protector #1 proceeds to generate new Randomizer integers for each encrypted field and re-encrypts the shuffled votes.

As a non-technical explanation, this re-encryption process can be compared to painting over the outside of a locked safe to make it unrecognizable. This ensures that the encrypted votes are fully anonymized and cannot be distinguished or linked back to the voter's identity.

How To Choose Privacy Protectors

The most secure and safest approach is to assign Privacy Protectors with independent interests, such as one nominated by each participating political party.

To be confident that the privacy of the vote is protected, voters need to trust just a single Privacy Protector. Privacy Protectors do not need to trust each other, and cannot possibly tamper with votes.

Benefits

Privacy Protectors provide an additional layer of security and transparency in online elections.

SIV Privacy Protectors function similarly to election observers in traditional paper-based elections but with some significant enhancements due to the use of strong cryptography.

Given the technological nature of this process, only a small number of Privacy Protectors are needed in comparison to the large number of observers required for traditional paper elections, which can ultimately only offer limited security.