Unlock the power of data while safeguarding privacy and confidentiality

With expanding internet coverage across Southeast Asia (SEA), 2023 saw up to 80 per cent of the region being internet users¹. Widespread internet penetration is set to increase as the world becomes more connected. As the number of internet users increases, so does the amount of data collected. From demographic details to information about customers, like their sentiments and purchase history, businesses have access to an abundance of information about their audiences that they need to handle securely.

Customer data can provide insights that inform decisions from marketing strategy to product pipeline and development. At the same time, it increases the responsibility of businesses to safeguard their customers’ personal data and other sensitive business data. Businesses should balance their appetite for insights with the need for data protection through Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs). In Singapore, businesses can experiment with PET Solutions through IMDA’s PET Sandbox and develop use cases.

Protecting data with PETs

The emergence of PETs is a significant step towards addressing this issue. Put simply, they are a set of tools and processes that enables the flow of insights from data without disclosing underlying confidential data. Similar to keyhole surgery, this means any sensitive information – whether it is customers’ personal data or confidential business information – remains undisclosed throughout the process, eliminating the risk of data leaks.

For example, a travel agency and a telecommunications company could use secure multi-party computing to first identify how many common customers they have and build a joint data model based on a wider variety of data from both parties. Not only can they better understand their customers’ travel preferences, they will not need to pool and share commercially sensitive data, which is typically required for joint model development.

PETs offer a sweet spot for businesses to continue using data to obtain valuable insights while ensuring they are complying with data protection regulations. As these technologies are still in the early adoption stage, businesses will need guidance in understanding how PETs can benefit them, should they eventually deploy them.

Experimenting with PETs in a safe space

IMDA launched Singapore’s first PET Sandbox in July 2022, which is a safe space for businesses to trial PETs in a real-world environment.

Companies with a clear business need, together with their preferred PET solution providers, can trial technologies with support from IMDA. These include regulatory support to ensure confidence in deploying technologies in a compliant manner. By creating the opportunity to trial technologies, the PET Sandbox reduces the risks of traditional data sharing, opening opportunities for data collaboration between businesses, and unlocking more data for use in training artificial intelligence platforms.

Many companies are already part of the PET Sandbox. Global payments technology firm, Mastercard (365.61KB), has been assessing the potential for emerging technologies such as PETs to strengthen its products against financial crimes like money laundering. Using the PET Sandbox, Mastercard developed a proof of concept to evaluate a third-party Fully Homomorphic Encryption product to share financial crime intelligence between Singapore, the United States, India, and the United Kingdom, while complying with the regulatory requirements of these countries.

On the digital advertising front, publishers, advertisers, and adtech firms have traditionally relied heavily on tracking technologies, like third party cookies, to collect data. They then analyse how consumers can be shown advertisements aligned to their online interests or activities. However, the collection of user and device identifiers that are linkable across platforms has lowered trust in the digital advertising ecosystem.

To address this, Meta and its partners piloted Interoperable Private Attribution (IPA) within the PET Sandbox environment. Using a combination of multi-party computing, aggregation, differential privacy and write-only identifiers, the solution measures advertising outcomes. It is based on impressions shown on publishing platforms and conversions occurring on an advertiser website or application, without linkable user and device identifiers.

These pilots guide development of policies and best practices that help businesses make the most of the technology. They also provide learnings for IMDA to better support the industry’s adoption of PETs.

Maximising the value of data, safely

PETs empower organisations to extract maximum value from the rapidly growing pool of data from our increasingly connected world. Data-driven decisions will enable businesses to boost growth, collaboration, and innovation in a competitive digital economy.

The time to start experimenting is now. Learn how your business can also benefit from IMDA’s PET Sandbox.