Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) are crucial for safeguarding individual privacy while enabling socially beneficial research, data sharing, and advancements in sectors that collect or use sensitive data. As AI systems increasingly rely on vast amounts of data, PETs like differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, federated learning, zero-knowledge proofs, and even model contract clauses can help ensure that personal data remains confidential and secure. This is vital not only for protecting individual rights but also for earning and maintaining public trust in technologies that use data about people.
Ethically implementing PETs is also essential. PETs must be designed and deployed to protect marginalized groups and avoid practices that may appear to be privacy-preserving, but actually exploit sensitive data or undermine privacy. In addition, clear policy guidelines on the deployment of PETs are necessary to help make sound business cases for their use in industry. If PETs are ethically integrated into research and business practices, and if global regulators have an opportunity to support their appropriate deployment, there is enormous potential for increasing technological innovation and societal benefits while upholding privacy and public trust.
FPF supports the development of PETs, convenes experts from around the world to deploy best practices, and provides in-depth analysis of emerging technologies and their policy implications. FPF also leads the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy-funded Research Coordination Network for the use of PETs to advance socially beneficial data sharing and protect people’s privacy as data is increasingly used to train AI models. FPF also facilitates a Global PETs Network of regulators who are interested in the lawful and ethical implementation of these tools.
White House/MIT Big Data Privacy Workshop Recap
Speaking for everyone snowed-in in DC, White House Counselor John Podesta remarked that “big snow trumped big data,” while on the phone to open the first of the Obama Administration’s three big data and privacy workshops. This first workshop focused on advancing the “start of the art” in technology and practice. While these workshops are ultimately the […]
New Study Shows Need for De-identification Best Practices
Publically releasing sensitive information is risky. In 1997, Latanya Sweeney used full date of birth, 5 digit ZIP code, and gender to show that seemingly anonymous medical data could be linked to an actual person when she uncovered the health information of William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts. Sweeney in a new study analyzes […]
Big Data and Privacy: Making Ends Meet Conference
Solutions to many pressing economic and societal challenges may be found in better understanding data, from safer cities to cleaner air, but as the amount and variety of data collection continues to increase, our data-driven society also poses serious concerns about infringements on privacy. The need for a way forward is evident, and both corporate […]
PCLOB Nomination Hearing
Last Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee held a confirmation hearing for nominees to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). The Board, created in response to the 9/11 Commission, is charged with making sure privacy and civil rights are protected for executive branch activities and measures. It consists of five members appointed by the […]
FPF Advisory Board Makes Up 2/3 of Witnesses at Hearing
Today, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has a hearing entitled “Understanding Consumer Attitudes About Privacy.” Four of the six witnesses appearing before the subcommittee are Advisory Board members (or, in the case of Microsoft, representing a company whose CPO is on our Advisory Board).
Gibberbot Wins Inaugural Develop for Privacy Challenge
The Develop for Privacy Challenge, organized by the ACLUs of Northern California and Washington, the Tor Project, and the Information & Privacy Commissioner’s Office of Ontario, was launched to highlight some of the best privacy-enhancing mobile apps out there — apps that improve, rather than erode, our ability to protect and control our own private […]
The Future of Privacy Forum Consumer Privacy Agenda for the New Administration
1. Appoint a Chief Privacy Officer to Promote Fair Information Practices in the Public and Private Sectors. We embrace the idea of government catching up to industry by creating the central role of a Chief Technology Officer, as has been announced. But we also point out the need — recognized by hundreds of privacy-sensitive companies […]
The Future of Privacy Forum Consumer Privacy Agenda for the New Administration
1. Appoint a Chief Privacy Officer to Promote Fair Information Practices in the Public and Private Sectors.
We embrace the idea of government catching up to industry by creating the central role of a Chief Technology Officer, as has been announced. But we also point out the need — recognized by hundreds of privacy-sensitive companies — for a senior level Chief Privacy Officer, someone to ensure that data protection is a central consideration for technology, data and policy decisions. Although many federal agencies have privacy officers, the fact that data is increasingly available across government entities demonstrates the need for a central figure to lead U.S. efforts to respect citizen data. To ensure that the data needed to combat terror will be available while appropriate oversight is in place to protect essential freedoms, the Administration should have an accountable, executive-level figure to drive an agenda based on responsible data practices.