Yohan Beugin

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where I am a member of the Security and Privacy Research Group. I am advised by Prof. Patrick McDaniel and I have been the lead graduate student of his research group for two years.

My research interests lie within web privacy, online advertising and tracking, as well as cloud and network security. I combine large-scale empirical measurements with systematic and independent analyses to evaluate privacy and security properties of real-world systems and protect their users. Looking ahead, I plan to continue applying this approach to evaluate new and emerging web technologies, the security of critical open-source projects, and the impact of AI on these ecosystems.

I am serving as Artifact Co-Chair of the 26th and 27th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in 2026 and 2027. I have also created and continue to maintain the Privacy Sandstorm research portal.

Previously, I received my M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University as well as my Diplôme d'Ingénieur (B.S. and M.S. in Engineering Sciences) from the French Engineering School Centrale Lyon.

In my free time, I enjoy baking, reading, and spending time with my two cats. I also love being active and in nature, depending on the season, you can find me: bikepacking, geocaching, hiking, playing badminton, running, skiing, snowboarding, or swimming.

Email: yohan@beugin.org

I am on the academic job market this 2026-2027 recruiting cycle! Feel free to reach out to discuss opportunities.

Selected Publications

SoK: Advances and Open Problems in Web Tracking
Yash Vekaria*, Yohan Beugin*, Shaoor Munir, Gunes Acar, Nataliia Bielova, Steven Englehardt, Umar Iqbal, Alexandros Kapravelos, Pierre Laperdrix, Nick Nikiforakis, Jason Polakis, Franziska Roesner, Zubair Shafiq, Sebastian Zimmeck
*Equal contribution. Under submission, 2026
Paper arXiv Code Poster Long Version Lecture Slides BibTex
@article{beuginSoKAdvancesOpenProblems2026, title = {SoK: Advances and Open Problems in Web Tracking}, author = {Yash Vekaria* and Yohan Beugin* and Shaoor Munir and Gunes Acar and Nataliia Bielova and Steven Englehardt and Umar Iqbal and Alexandros Kapravelos and Pierre Laperdrix and Nick Nikiforakis and Jason Polakis and Franziska Roesner and Zubair Shafiq and Sebastian Zimmeck}, month = sep, year = {2026}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2506.14057}, note = {*Equal contribution. Under submission} }
Longitudinal Adoption and Deprecation of the Privacy Sandbox Web APIs
Yohan Beugin, Paul Barford, Patrick McDaniel
Under submission, 2026
Paper arXiv Code Poster Website BibTex
@article{beuginLongitudinalAdoptionDeprecation2026, title = {Longitudinal Adoption and Deprecation of the Privacy Sandbox Web APIs}, author = {Yohan Beugin and Paul Barford and Patrick McDaniel}, month = jun, year = {2026}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2606.26390}, note = {Under submission}, }
The Need for a (Research) Sandstorm through the Privacy Sandbox
Yohan Beugin, Patrick McDaniel
17th Workshop on Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (HotPETs), 2024
Slides Website Technical Report Slack Invite BibTex
@inproceedings{beuginNeedResearchSandstormPrivacySandbox2024, title = {The Need for a (Research) Sandstorm through the Privacy Sandbox}, author = {Yohan Beugin and Patrick McDaniel}, month = jul, year = {2024}, booktitle = {17th Workshop on Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (HotPETs)}, url = {https://privacysandstorm.com} }
Interest-disclosing Mechanisms for Advertising are Privacy-Exposing (not Preserving)
Yohan Beugin, Patrick McDaniel
Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), 2024
Paper arXiv Code Slides Video Poster Artifact: Reproduced BibTex
@inproceedings{beuginInterestDisclosingMechanismsAdvertising2024, title = {Interest-disclosing Mechanisms for Advertising are Privacy-Exposing (not Preserving)}, author = {Yohan Beugin and Patrick McDaniel}, month = jul, year = {2024}, booktitle = {Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS)}, doi = {10.56553/popets-2024-0004} }
A Public and Reproducible Assessment of the Topics API on Real Data
Yohan Beugin, Patrick McDaniel
IEEE Security and Privacy Workshop on Designing Security for the Web (SecWeb), 2024
Paper arXiv Code Slides Poster BibTex
@inproceedings{beuginPublicReproducibleAssessmentTopics2024, title = {A Public and Reproducible Assessment of the Topics API on Real Data}, author = {Yohan Beugin and Patrick McDaniel}, month = may, year = {2024}, booktitle = {IEEE Security and Privacy Workshop on Designing Security for the Web (SecWeb)}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2403.19577} }
See here for a list of all my publications.

Recent News

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September 2026 - Releasing a new preprint version of our SoK: Advances and Open Problems in Web Tracking.
August 2026 - Attending and presenting a poster at USENIX Security 2026 in Baltimore, MD, USA.
July 2026 - Giving a guest talk at UCalgary, thanks Miti for hosting me! Also attending and presenting a poster at PETS 2026 in Calgary, Canada.
June 2026 - Releasing a new preprint on a measurement and analysis study of the adoption and deprecation of the Privacy Sandbox APIs.
May 2026 - Giving a guest talk at UC-Davis, thanks Zubair for hosting me! Also attending and presenting a poster at IEEE S&P 2026 in San Francisco, CA, USA.
April 2026 - Teaching a new guest lecture, also presenting my research at the UW-Madison Day at the Capitol.
March 2026 - Serving on the PC and Artifact Chair for PETS'27: consider submitting your work and contributing to open science.