Le LINC

The LINC’s missions

The CNIL Digital Innovation Laboratory (LINC) is a department within CNIL’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Artificial Intelligence (DTIA). The LINC has four main missions :

• Explore: The LINC explores the future of society in order to better anticipate the impact of technological innovations and their uses on privacy and civil liberties.
• Exchange: LINC builds bridges between stakeholders in the digital society (companies, institutions, civil society, etc.) in order to better inform them about the emerging challenges at the intersection of ethics, freedoms, and privacy and, more importantly, to get their point of view on these challenges.
• Equip: LINC develops and adapts tools for both internal departments and the public in order to raise awareness about data usage and facilitate the exercise of individual rights.
• Experiment: LINC leads experimental projects in order to better understand emerging digital practices and uses.

The team

• Mehdi Arfaoui
  Mehdi is a sociologist at CNIL’s Digital Innovation Laboratory (LINC) and an associate researcher at the Centre for the Study of Social Movements (CEMS) at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS). After completing his PhD at EHESS and teaching for several years at Paris-Dauphine University, Mehdi joined CNIL to lead sociological research projects and promote the contribution of the social sciences to understanding issues related to personal data and privacy. In this capacity, he works to build bridges between CNIL and the scientific community. 
  His LINC publications

• Martin Bieri
  Martin is an Innovation and Foresight Research Officer at LINC. Graduating in health geography and competitive intelligence, he joined the LINC team in 2019 after several years working as a web research and monitoring analyst. He has contributed to various LINC publications and studies, including the Innovation and Foresight Papers and the white paper “Listening to You” on voice assistants, published in September 2020. He is particularly interested in digital issues related to health data.
  His LINC publications

• Régis Chatellier
  Régis graduated from Sciences Po Grenoble in 2006. From 2013 to 2016, he worked as a consultant in data-driven territorial innovation. He joined CNIL in January 2016, where he coordinates and/or writes CNIL’s Innovation and Foresight Reports on topics such as the rise of platforms in cities, the role of design in data protection, civic tech, individuals’ relationships with data protection, and the intersections between data protection and environmental protection. He also contributes to the development of foresight explorations, scenarios, and design fiction projects. In parallel, he leads the foresight committee and contributes to various CNIL initiatives, for example on the right to data portability, the regulation of metaverses, and the implementation of the Data Governance Act.
  His LINC publications
   
• Audrey Pety
  Audrey is an interaction designer at CNIL’s Digital Innovation Laboratory (LINC). With a background in industrial design from ENSCI – Les Ateliers (Paris), she develops participatory mediation and data visualization tools, notably with the SOC studio. Since 2022, she has been interested in the preservation of native digital heritage in collaboration with the French Web Legal Deposit program at the National Library of France (BnF). She joined LINC in 2023 to support the design of privacy-respecting user experiences through a collaborative and guidance-oriented approach.
  
   
• Romain Pialat
  Romain has been a Research and Development Engineer at LINC since late 2022. After completing a generalist training in cybersecurity at IMT Atlantique, he carried out a research internship in homomorphic cryptography at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) before joining CNIL. He mainly works on issues related to re-identification and artificial intelligence, and contributes to the software development efforts across the laboratory’s various projects.
  
   
• Vincent Toubiana
  Vincent has been Head of LINC since 2021. He earned a PhD in Computer Science and Networks from Télécom ParisTech in 2008. Since 2009, he has been working on privacy protection issues: first at NYU under the supervision of Helen Nissenbaum, then from 2010 to 2013 at Bell Labs of Alcatel-Lucent, and finally at CNIL, which he joined in 2013 as an engineer in the Technology Expertise Department. In 2016, he completed a three-month internship at the FTC. From 2017 to 2021, he was seconded first to Arcep as a project officer and then to the CNNum, where he served as Deputy Secretary General.

Alumnis

• Alixe Peraldi
  Alixe was a designer at LINC. After completing a Master’s degree in Care Design from the Nantes Atlantique School of Design in 2023, she joined CNIL to contribute to the various projects of the Digital Innovation Laboratory through service, interface, and interaction design. Following a collaboration with the Hearing Foundation on prevention and mediation issues, she developed a particular interest in accessibility through design. Passionate about the social and cognitive sciences, she brings a behavioral approach to each project, questioning our relationship with digital technologies through the lens of personal data protection.