DNS4EU will provide EU citizens, companies, and institutions with a secure, privacy-compliant, and powerful recursive DNS. It will become a vital part of European internet sovereignty.

The DNS4EU is a part of the EU vision to strengthen the EU’s digital independence and serve as an alternative to the current public DNS offered by US-based tech giants. The plan is to combine the current telecommunications operator and internet service provider infrastructure with new publicly accessible DNS resolvers. It will offer both free DNS service to the citizens and institutions as well as enhanced security premium services. Outcome of the project is a powerful recursive DNS, an “address book of the internet” enabling browsing web via domain names instead of strings of numbers.  

The AI Center FEE CTU participates as the third largest consortium member under the leadership of Sebastián García. We will be in charge of the security by protecting users from malware, DNS abuse, phishing, and other threats.

Project researchers Sebastián García and Joaquin Bogado.

Impact of the recursive DNS

The deployment and wide use of DNS4EU will protect 100 million people by working together with mobile and internet service companies across Europe. It will have the following key benefits.

  • Offer a high-end alternative to existing dominant non-EU public resolvers, leading to a more resilient, more secure and diversified DNS resolution offering for EU internet users.
  • Autonomy of DNS resolving, diminishing the dependency on major public resolvers established outside the EU, and reducing vulnerability to outages of these resolvers.
  • Complete safeguards for EU internet users that their data and privacy are protected and handled according to EU rules.
  • Increased protection against malicious activities based on both global and local (EU) threat feeds and intelligence.
  • Testing and deploying innovative technologies to enhance internet access security and privacy.

Solution developed by 13 consortium members based in 10 EU countries

For the solution to be accessible to everyone, the European Commission chose a team of diverse members with long experience in the field both from private and public sector. The project is coordinated by Whalebone, a Czech cybersecurity and digital life protection company. Further members of the consortium are: AI Center FEE CTU (CZ), CESNET (CZ), CZ.NIC (CZ), Abi Lab (CERTFin IT), Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança ( CERT.PT), deSec (DE),  Ministry of Electronic Governance (BG), NASK (CERT Polska), National Cyber Security Directorate (RO), F-Secure (FI), Sztaki (Hun-CERT) and Time.lex (BE).