PETs in Practice 1
Elea Himmelsbach, Calum Inverarity, Dr Jared Robert Keller, Neil Majithia, Elena Paslaru Bontas Simperl · 2024
As part of the ongoing work at the ODI onprivacy-enhancing technologies(PETs), we are working on a series of short explainers that provide a closer look at how certain PETs have been deployed in the real world. In these explainers, we have created interactive diagrams that walk you through the processes involved in the working of each example and a corresponding write-up that provides the context of the circumstances in which it was used. Together, these two items provide a practical walkthrough of why this PET was used, how it works in practice and the outcomes of its use. In this particular explainer, we look at multi-party computation (MPC). MPC is a cryptographic protocol that enables individual stakeholders who hold sensitive data to pool it with others for joint computations without revealing the underlying data itself. In this example, theBoston Women’s Workforce Council(BWWC) partnered with Boston University to use MPC to enable companies from the Greater Boston area to collectively compute the sum of their payroll data without revealing their individual contributions. The MPC protocol was produced to benchmark employers and produce a pay equity report covering the Greater Boston area.