Emerging PETs have the potential to unlock data-driven innovation across sectors, but there remain barriers to their adoption including a lack of awareness, understanding, and expertise of these technologies and how to embed them in good organisational practice.
In the session we will showcase international perspectives on PETs, by discussing their implications for policy and regulation; the technical, organisational and cultural changes that may be required to enable their effective adoption; and the role of governments and public-private partnerships in this space. We will also explore how governments are leveraging PETs in practice, through new international initiatives, and policy and regulatory efforts.
Dr. June Brawner
Dr. June Brawner is a policy advisor at The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences. She leads the Society’s work on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) within the Data and AI policy team, which is developing policy and promoting debate that helps the UK safely and rapidly realise the growing benefits of data science and digital technologies.
June’s career in academic and policy research spans the US, UK, and Central / Eastern Europe, with a focus on environmental data for policymaking. Prior to her current role she worked as a research consultant and has previously completed fellowships with the Fulbright Commission and Columbia University’s Council for European Studies.
As an anthropologist, June is especially interested in the ‘social life’ of data: the cultural and political factors that hinder or promote the equitable use of data for research, innovation, and decision-making. To this end, she sees upholding the right to privacy as a key technical and social challenge in using data for societal benefit.
Mark Durkee
Mark works for the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, leading a portfolio of work including the Centre's work on privacy enhancing technologies, and public sector algorithmic transparency. He previously led CDEI's Review into Bias in Algorithmic Decision-Making. Prior to joining CDEI in 2019, he worked in a variety of technology strategy, architecture and cyber security roles in the UK government, as a software engineer, and completed a PhD in theoretical physics.
Stephanie King
Ott Velsberg
Ott Velsberg is the Chief Data Officer for the Estonian government. He oversees strategic coordination and implementation of data science and data governance in Estonia, including domains like artificial intelligence, privacy enhancing technologies and open data. He is also a Ph.D. researcher in the department of Informatics at Umeå University. His research concentrates on the use of information systems in the public sector, with a special focus on the use of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Suguru Iwaya
Suguru Iwaya is a director for policy planning at the Headquarters for Digital Market Competition, Cabinet Secretariat of Japan, where he works on a market investigation into mobile ecosystem as well as an initiative that promotes the use of decentralised identity. Suguru was a policy analyst in the Science, Technology and Innovation Directorate at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris from 2017 to June 2022, where he worked on projects on data governance and risk management in digital economy. From 2008 to 2015, he worked for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan. Suguru received a Master’s Degree in Management and Strategy from London School of Economics and Political Science in 2017, a Master’s Degree in Urban Regeneration from University College London in 2016, and a Master of Physics from Tokyo University in 2008.
