Simon Fondrie-Teitler, Federal Trade Commission, Office of Technology
Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) offer a useful set of tools for building products and functionality while protecting the privacy of users' data. But the methods and implementations exist on a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, they allow a company to offer products and services without ever having access to a user's data. On the other, they are a small layer on top of otherwise unfettered access to an individual's data. This talk will discuss where two technologies in particular, multi-party computation and private relays, fall on this spectrum. It will describe the Federal Trade Commission's optimism about PETs. It will also emphasize that because not all PETs are on the fully private end of the spectrum, companies making representations to consumers about their use of PETs must follow the law and ensure that any privacy claims or representations are accurate.
Simon Fondrie-Teitler, Federal Trade Commission, Office of Technology
Simon is a senior technology advisor in the Federal Trade Commission's Office of Technology. Previously, he worked at The Markup, a non-profit investigative news organization and contributed to several investigations, including co-authoring several articles reporting on the use and data sharing practices of advertising-motivated tracking technologies on sensitive websites like those of hospitals, telehealth startups, and tax preparation companies. Simon also contributed to building and maintaining Blacklight, an online real-time website privacy inspector tool. Before that, he helped stabilize and build the cloud infrastructure at several companies and led the technical effort to bring a startup into compliance with HIPAA.
author = {Simon Fondrie-Teitler},
title = {Don{\textquoteright}t End Up in the {PETs} Cemetery},
year = {2024},
address = {Santa Clara, CA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jun
}