White House Launch New Initiative to Innovate Technologies on a World-Wide Basis

On December 8, 2021, the White House Office of Science and Technology issued a statement during the Summit for Democracy launching a new initiative: International Grand Challenges on Democracy-Affirming Technologies. Among the actions that will be taken in pursuit of the new initiative is a partnership between the U.S. and the U.K. to “collaborate on bilateral innovation prize challenges focused on advancing privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs).”

Essentially, this initiative will drive citizens of both countries to attempt to establish and bring forth PETs that “protects privacy and intellectual property, enabling cross-border and cross-sector collaboration to solve shared challenges.” The competitive nature of this initiative is expected to produce more mature versions of PETs from the “top minds” and will facilitate adoption of the PETs.

The use of PETs to protect consumer data is an established practice that has already produced successful results for many years and across many “societal challenges.”

The specifics of the challenge have not been announced yet, but the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are currently leading an interagency initiative to develop the challenges with a team of specialists from across the UK Government. According to the press release, both countries anticipate that the prize challenges will be launched in the spring of 2022 and the initial results will be shared at the second Summit for Democracy.

This initiative evidences the United States’ determination to protect the private data of consumers from the recent surge in cyber-attacks across the world.  Even if a company does not participate in the challenges, companies should still stay apprised of the results to ensure compliance with the results to ensure compliance with the evolving legislative structure and any best practices that result.

If you have any questions or concerns about participation in this initiative or how it might impact your organization, please contact Kennedy Sutherland.