A Roadmap for Greater Public Use of Privacy-Sensitive Government Data: Workshop Report

TL;DR

This report summarizes a workshop exploring technological and policy strategies to enhance the safe, privacy-preserving sharing of government datasets for research and policy development.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current privacy-preserving technologies and identifies challenges and opportunities for increasing government data sharing.

Findings

Successful applications of formal privacy techniques

Use of synthetic data and cryptographic methods

Identified challenges in balancing privacy and data utility

Abstract

Government agencies collect and manage a wide range of ever-growing datasets. While such data has the potential to support research and evidence-based policy making, there are concerns that the dissemination of such data could infringe upon the privacy of the individuals (or organizations) from whom such data was collected. To appraise the current state of data sharing, as well as learn about opportunities for stimulating such sharing at a faster pace, a virtual workshop was held on May 21st and 26th, 2021, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST), and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where a multinational collection of researchers and practitioners were brought together to discuss their experiences and learn about recently developed technologies for managing privacy while sharing data. The workshop specifically focused on challenges and successes in government data sharing at various levels. The first day focused on successful examples of new technology applied to sharing of public data, including formal privacy techniques, synthetic data, and cryptographic approaches. Day two emphasized brainstorming sessions on some of the challenges and directions to address them.