Our Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) project is advancing global understanding and adoption of PETs—tools and techniques that enable data to be processed, shared, and analyzed while minimizing privacy risks and safeguarding personal information.
Through this project, CIPL aims to:
-
Showcase the real-world benefits of PETs across various sectors to encourage broader implementation.
-
Identify key barriers to adoption and propose practical, scalable solutions for organizations and regulators.
-
Facilitate expert dialogue between industry, policymakers, and regulators on legal considerations, best practices, and responsible use of PETs.
By promoting trusted data use and innovation, CIPL’s PETs Project supports a future where privacy and data utility go hand in hand.
Key milestones in our Privacy Enhancing Technologies project:
2023
We published our white paper Privacy-Enhancing and Privacy-Preserving Technologies: Understanding the Role of PETs and PPTs in the Digital Age, exploring how organizations approach PETs, their potential to advance data protection principles, and challenges to their adoption.
2024
We hosted a webinar titled Privacy-Enhancing Technologies: Paving Pathways for PETs Adoption, featuring privacy leaders discussing best practices for implementing PETs and promoting public good.
We conducted a hybrid roundtable for our Financial Services Working Group, focusing on the application of PETs in the financial sector and discussing sector-specific challenges and opportunities.
2025
CIPL published a paper titled Privacy-Enhancing and Privacy-Preserving Technologies in AI: Enabling Data Use and Operationalizing Privacy by Design and Default.
This paper provides an in-depth exploration of how PETs can and are being deployed to address privacy concerns specifically within AI systems. The paper describes how these technologies can help operationalize privacy by design and by default when developing AI systems, and also serve as key business enablers, allowing companies and public sector organizations to access, share and use data that would otherwise be unavailable.
The paper also demonstrates how PETs can help address challenges and provide new opportunities across the AI life cycle, from data sourcing to model deployment, and includes real-world case studies throughout the paper to help illustrate their practical application and benefits.
2026
Alongside our participation in numerous conference panels highlighting our leading research on PETs, we hosted a high-level roundtable on PETs and Pseudonymisation with leading PETs expert Dr Khaled El Emam, which provided participants with practical case studies of pseudonymisation and the use of privacy enhancing technologies.
Our PETs Project is designed to generate actionable insights, foster global dialogue, and equip organizations for the future of data privacy and responsible data use through:
Regulatory and Strategic Readiness
- Delivering expert guidance on aligning PETs with evolving global privacy regulations such as the GDPR, OECD AI Principles, and cross-border data frameworks.
- Supporting members with regulatory engagement, interpretation of legal requirements, and integration of PETs into compliance strategies.
- Developing tools and templates to support privacy-by-design, data minimization, and accountability frameworks.
Global Dialogue and Policy Guidance
- Facilitating dialogue between regulators, industry leaders, civil society, and academics to shape the responsible deployment of PETs.
- Hosting multi-stakeholder roundtables, policy labs, and high-impact workshops focused on trust-enhancing technologies and data practices.
- Publishing thought leadership pieces and policy papers that influence digital policy development and data governance models globally.
Thought Leadership and Capacity Building
- Producing cutting-edge research on emerging PETs, including federated learning, differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, and secure multiparty computation.
- Empowering members through training programs, webinars, and toolkits to build internal PETs knowledge and operational readiness.
- Positioning CIPL as a global leader in privacy innovation, collaborating with international organizations, standard-setting bodies, and academic institutions.
