The Case for Researching Applied Privacy Enhancing Technologies

Research on privacy enhancing approaches for sharing data has grown significantly over the past two decades. This increased interest has led to extensive theoretical and methodological research, but the number of practical applications of privacy enhancing technologies has lagged far behind. This paper provides an overview of the Safe Data Technologies Project and the approach we have taken to conducting privacy research with the specific aim of putting theory into practice and incorporating user input. We provide an overview of the broader project goals, which aim to safely expand access to administrative tax data that is currently highly restricted. We highlight how understanding user interactions with the privacy enhancing methods has driven our research path and challenged the often unrealistic assumptions underlying much of the theoretical work. We review the primary findings from our research, discuss our plans for future directions, and make the case for researchers to pursue similar lines of applied inquiry.