### Harnessing Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) for Responsible Data Value Unlocking
With the exponential growth of data generation, Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) have emerged as pivotal tools that aid in balancing data utility with stringent privacy requirements. For data protection professionals and privacy experts, the potential of PETs to innovate while safeguarding privacy is of particular interest.
Recently, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in collaboration with DSIT’s Responsible Technology Adoption Unit, introduced the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Cost-Benefit Awareness Tool. This tool aims to assist organizations in evaluating the economic and operational implications of deploying PETs. Key innovations in this field include homomorphic encryption, trusted execution environments, secure multi-party computation, and differential privacy.
Why should privacy experts advocate for PETs?
– **Enhancing Privacy Compliance**: PETs can reduce risks not only to individuals’ privacy but also diminish long-term compliance costs by ensuring ongoing adherence to privacy regulations, such as GDPR.
– **Facilitating Data Innovation**: By allowing data processing without compromising privacy, PETs enable organizations across sectors to extract valuable insights, fostering innovation.
– **Supporting Data Collaboration**: Through mechanisms like privacy-preserving federated learning, these technologies facilitate collaborative data efforts without centralizing or exposing sensitive information.
However, the adoption of these technologies remains slow. Many organizations encounter hurdles in accurately assessing the benefits versus the costs, especially for technologies still developing to full maturity.
The newly launched tool provides a comprehensive framework to assist organizations in contrasting these costs and benefits, inclusive of real-world use cases and hypothetical modeling. Such tools and resources are crucial, as the uptake of PETs can significantly bolster data privacy measures while driving meaningful data utilization.
We invite the community to share their experiences and insights on PETs. Have you encountered challenges in PET adoption? How did you overcome them? Participate in this conversation to contribute towards developing best practices for leveraging PETs responsibly.
For those looking to dive deeper into practical applications, a detailed repository of PETs use cases across various sectors is now accessible, illustrating diverse implementations and outcomes.
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[Original source URL](https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2024/11/using-privacy-enhancing-technologies-pets-to-unlock-value-from-data-responsibly/)