In response to President Biden’s AI executive order (EO), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DoE) have officially established a Research Coordination Network (RCN) dedicated to advancing privacy research.
Specifically, the RCN will focus on advancing the development, deployment, and scaling of privacy enhancing technologies (PETs). The initiative will help privacy researchers to share information, collaborate in research, and develop standards for the privacy-research community, according to the EO.
“This crucial investment represents our commitment to advancing the foundations of responsible AI and privacy-enhancing technologies,” Dilma DaSilva, acting assistant director for NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, said in a Feb. 26 press release. “This effort supports research and development that enables individuals and society to benefit equitably from the value derived from privacy preserving data sharing and analytics.”
The RCN is led by the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) Education and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to data privacy leadership and scholarship. The RCN brings together experts from academia, industry, and government to collaborate on PETs.
PETs are what some experts refer to as “have your cake and eat it too” technologies, meaning that they enable data analysis while safeguarding individual privacy. Some examples of PETs include synthetic data, homomorphic encryption, and federated learning.
According to the press release, one of the main goals of the RCN is to address barriers to the widespread adoption of PETs, including regulatory considerations. “The team will prioritize use cases for PETs that support privacy-preserving machine learning and those essential for Federal agencies to ensure the equitable use of AI,” it says.
“Privacy-enhancing technologies are increasingly important in today’s data-driven landscape. They allow us to safeguard sensitive datasets and information needed to advance a broad research, development, and demonstration portfolio,” said Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, director of DoE’s Office of Science.
“This Research Coordination Network will help us move toward the shared goal of establishing new standards for data safety and security that will allow us to continue to develop the innovations and scientific discoveries we need to achieve our clean energy and industrial goals,” she added.
