How can technology support data governance and enable new, innovative uses of data for public benefit?
The Royal Society’s Privacy Enhancing Technologies programme investigates the potential for tools and approaches collectively known as Privacy Enhancing Technologies, or PETs, in maximising the benefit and reducing the harms associated with data use.
Our 2023 report, From privacy to partnership: the role of Privacy Enhancing Technologies in data governance and collaborative analysis (PDF), was undertaken in close collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute, and considers the potential for PETs to revolutionise the safe and rapid use of sensitive data for wider public benefit. It considers the role of these technologies in addressing data governance issues beyond privacy, addressing the following questions:
- How can PETs support data governance and enable new, innovative uses of data for public benefit?
- What are the primary barriers and enabling factors around the adoption of PETs in data governance, and how might these be addressed or amplified?
- How might PETs be factored into frameworks for assessing and balancing risks, harms and benefits when working with personal data?
In answering these questions, our report integrates evidence from a range of sources, including the advisem*nt of an expert Working Group, consultation with a range of stakeholders across sectors, as well as a synthetic data explainerand commissioned reviews on UK public sector PETs adoption (PDF) and PETs standards and assurances (PDF), which are available for download.
This report builds on the Royal Society’s 2019 publicationProtecting privacy in practice: the current use, development and limits of Privacy Enhancing Technologies for data analysis (PDF). Protecting privacy in practice presented a high-level overview of PETs and identified how these technologies could play a role in addressing privacy in applied data science research, digital strategies and data-driven business.
What are Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs)?
Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) are a suite of tools that can help maximise the use of data by reducing risks inherent to data use. Some PETs provide new tools for anonymisation, while others enable collaborative analysis on privately-held datasets, allowing data to be used without disclosing copies of data. PETs are multi-purpose: they can reinforce data governance choices, serve as tools for data collaboration or enable greater accountability through audit. For these reasons, PETs have also been described as “Partnership Enhancing Technologies” or “Trust Technologies”.
What is data privacy, and why is it important?
The data we generate every day holds a lot of value and potentially also contains sensitive information that individuals or organisations might not wish to share with everyone. The protection of personal or sensitive data featured prominently in the social and ethical tensions identified in our 2017 British Academy and Royal Society report Data management and use: Governance in the 21st century.
Privacy in Practice (2019)
Our 2019 report, Protecting privacy in practice (PDF), provided a high-level overview of five current and promising PETs of a diverse nature, with their respective readiness levels and illustrative case studies from a range of sectors, with a view to inform in particular applied data science research and the digital strategies of government departments and businesses. This report also included recommendations on how the UK could fully realise the potential of PETs and to allow their use on a greater scale.
The 2019 project was informed by a series of conversations and evidence gathering events, involving a range of stakeholders across academia, government and the private sector (also see the projectterms of referenceand2019 Working Group).
On a related topic, in 2017 the Royal Society also partnered with The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities to organise a workshop exploring notions of privacy as an individual and public good, how digital technologies might have changed concepts of privacy, and how individuals, organisations and societies manage privacy, including through technology. Anote of discussions at this workshop (PDF)is available to download.
Our current Working Group includesProfessor Alison Noble OBE FREng FIET FRS (Chair), Professor Jon Crowcroft FREng FRS, Mr George Balston, Dr Anthony Finkelstein CBE FREng, Mr Guy Cohen, Dr Benjamin Curtis, Professor Emiliano de Cristofaro, Dr Marion Oswald, Professor Carsten Maple and Dr Suzanne Weller.
FAQs
These technologies can keep a consumer's communications private from a company, allow users to access data without the company learning who they are, or enable a company to use analytics and research to improve a product without gaining access to data about individuals.
What is the Royal Society from privacy to partnership? ›
From privacy to partnership sets out how an emerging set of privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) might help to balance the risks and rewards of data use, leading to wider social benefit.
Which of the following is an example of a privacy enhancing technology? ›
Hard privacy technologies
Data protection goals include data minimization and the reduction of trust in third-parties. Examples of such technologies include onion routing, the secret ballot, and VPNs used for democratic elections.
What are PETs in cybersecurity? ›
PETs are technologies that embody fundamental data protection principles by. minimising personal data use, maximising data security, and/or empowering. individuals.
What is the goal of the privacy program? ›
Ensuring an appropriate level of privacy through policies and procedures, especially as interpretations of privacy change over time; Raising awareness about privacy issues, laws and regulations.
How can technology help privacy? ›
These technologies can be used to build applications that minimize the need to reveal personal information and empower individuals to control the personal information they reveal and understand how it will be used. The technologies needed to implement these applications are fairly well understood.
Who funds the Royal Society? ›
Grants from government
We receive a grant from the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to support our work on scientific excellence and innovation, science and mathematics education, international activities and science communication activities.
Is the Royal Society a trusted source? ›
The Royal Society publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed journals covering all scientific disciplines. Whichever journal you choose we will offer you an excellent publishing service and international readership. We welcome submissions of high quality science from anywhere in the world.
Does the Royal Society still exist? ›
The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.
Which of the following technologies can lead to improvement of user privacy? ›
Explanation: VPNs allow its users to attach to the internet via a remote or virtual server which preserves privacy. The data transferred between your device & the server is securely encrypted if you are using VPNs.
Data protection solutions rely on technologies such as data loss prevention (DLP), storage with built-in data protection, firewalls, encryption, and endpoint protection.
What are the types of privacy preserving technologies? ›
Soft privacy technologies
Examples include differential privacy (DP), and tunnel encryption (e.g. SSL).
How are privacy enhancing technologies used to protect PII? ›
By aggregating and anonymizing sensitive data, these algorithms prevent the identification of individual users. This approach helps companies meet privacy law requirements like GDPR and CCPA, reducing the risk of fines and legal consequences while safeguarding user privacy.
What are the privacy enhancing technology pet solutions? ›
PETs include methods like encryption, anonymization, access controls, and solutions such as differential privacy, synthetic data generation, and confidential computing. They help organizations and individuals maintain control over their data and mitigate privacy risks in an increasingly data-centric world.
What are security pets called? ›
A guard dog or watchdog (not to be confused with an attack dog) is a dog used to watch for and guard people or property against unwanted or unexpected human or animal intruders.
What are the privacy enhancing computation technology? ›
Privacy-enhancing computation protects data in use while maintaining privacy or secrecy online common data-at-rest security measures.
What is the purpose of digital privacy? ›
Digital privacy serves as a shield that safeguards personal information from undue exposure and misuse. Consider the myriad of information individuals provide online—from social media profiles to online banking transactions.
What are the benefits of privacy settings? ›
Keep your private information safe
Internet privacy means protecting your browsing history, passwords and usernames, private messages, purchases, etc. from prying eyes. This information is valuable to trackers, advertisers, and criminals. Most likely you don't want them to know.
What are the benefits of privacy engineering? ›
Benefits of Privacy Engineering in Cybersecurity
Privacy is a default feature, providing preventative protection. Offers complete security across the system's entire lifecycle. Protects user privacy by design. Helps companies gain customer trust and avoid future penalties.
