U.S./U.K. Launch PETs Innovation Prize Challenges

First announced at President Biden’s Summit for Democracy, the U.S./U.K. privacy-enhancing technologies prize challenges, are now open for registration. Co-sponsored by the National Institute for Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation, and planned in coordination with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and counterparts in the United Kingdom, the prize challenges seek to catalyze research to bring about solutions to financial crime and public health emergencies.

Solutions to pressing global issues such as preventing financial cybercrime and enhancing pandemic response capabilities requires vast amount of high quality data. Privacy-enhancing technologies will enable the cultivation and analysis of large datasets without jeopardizing a citizens’ fundamental right to privacy.

This prize challenge will run in parallel to the U.K. edition and feature three phases: 1) writing a technical white paper describing your approach; 2) developing the technical the solution proposed in the white paper; 3) and finally testing each others solutions. Challenge participants will develop solutions that enhance privacy protections across the lifecycle of collaborative learning, with the option to participate in up to two separate tracks:

Participants also have the option to design one generalized solution that works for both scenarios for broader applicability. U.S. Participants will be eligible to win prizes from a total prize purse of $800,000. More details on the challenge phases and rules can be found here. Interested participants must register and submit an abstract by September 4, 2022.