Putting privacy-enhancing technologies to use

Features
By Rory Bathgate
published

Data can be protected in use without breaking privacy boundaries

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(Image credit: Future / Unsplash - H Heyerlein)

As the economy has become increasingly dependent on data, companies have sought to make more profit from mining user actions such as through loyalty schemes or social media interactions. 

But individual rights also have to be respected, and businesses have to follow strict data protection procedures.

Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) are one method for companies to securely search through data to derive value – for example, a bank could search through customer data to expose fraudulent activity without putting the personal information of all the customers involved at risk.

This episode, Rory and Jane are joined by Ellison Anne Williams, CEO and founder of privacy-enhancing technology company Enveil, to discuss the dos and don’ts of data use, and how organizations can make use of PETs for enhanced data mining.

Highlights

“Gartner predicts that by 2025, you're going to see about 60% of all large organizations globally, leveraging some form of privacy-enhancing technologies for secure data sharing collaboration, monetization etcetera.”

“Now, privacy enhancing technologies uniquely protect data in use, when it's being used or processed, not when the data is sitting at rest in the file system or moving around the network in transit.”

“So when you talk about allowing any type of organization to be able to securely and privately use data across those boundaries or silos, one form of kind of boundary or silo that you can cross for secure and private data sharing and collaboration is that of organization. So for example, bank to bank, or maybe a healthcare entity to another healthcare entity.”

“It's equally applicable even down to the consumer level. However, I don't believe that's the way we're going to see adoption actually occur. I think at first it's going to follow a natural kind of innovation technology adoption curve, I believe, which is it will start with very large organizations.”

Footnotes

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Rory Bathgate
Rory Bathgate
Features and Multimedia Editor

Rory Bathgate is Features and Multimedia Editor at ITPro, overseeing all in-depth content and case studies. He can also be found co-hosting the ITPro Podcast with Jane McCallion, swapping a keyboard for a microphone to discuss the latest learnings with thought leaders from across the tech sector.

In his free time, Rory enjoys photography, video editing, and good science fiction. After graduating from the University of Kent with a BA in English and American Literature, Rory undertook an MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies at King’s College London. He joined ITPro in 2022 as a graduate, following four years in student journalism. You can contact Rory at rory.bathgate@futurenet.com or on LinkedIn.