How do privacy-enhancing technologies protect personal data?

Privacy-enhancing technologies, or PETs, help organisations use information while limiting unnecessary exposure of personal data. Different technologies protect different parts of the process: the information supplied, the calculations performed or the results released.

Examples include:

• Differential privacy, which limits what statistical results reveal about an individual’s contribution.

• Secure multiparty computation, which allows participants to calculate a shared result while protecting their separate inputs.

• Synthetic data, which can reduce reliance on real personal records for testing and development.

The appropriate technology depends on the task. Producing public statistics presents different risks from matching customer records between businesses.

The ICO’s guidance on PETs and data protection explains their potential benefits and limitations. PETs can support privacy by design, but using one does not automatically make information anonymous or establish a lawful basis for processing it.