- 12 groups from throughout the U.S. and the UK were revealed today as winners of Phase 1 of the Animals reward difficulties
- Applications now available to sign up with red groups, which will carefully test the strength of personal privacy defenses of the most appealing options in the last stage of the difficulties
Today, the UK and the U.S. federal governments have actually revealed the winners of the very first stage of the UK-U.S. privacy-enhancing innovations (Animals) reward difficulties. Innovators on both sides of the Atlantic are getting involved throughout 2 difficulty tracks – utilizing Animals to enhance detection of monetary criminal offense and anticipating a person’s threat of infection throughout a pandemic – or creating an option that would satisfy both situations.
The 12 prize-winning technical documents, chosen from 76 entries, set out cutting edge techniques to privacy-preserving federated knowing, winning an overall of $157,000 (£138,000) in rewards. They show the breadth and depth of technical skill in both countries and consist of groups from scholastic organizations, worldwide innovation business, and personal privacy start-ups.
The 2nd stage of the difficulties, which started previously this month, will see getting involved groups build the options pictured in their technical documents. They will likewise have opportunities to engage with regulators and federal government firms, to notify the advancement of options that support important regulative concepts. Innovators in the 2nd stage will complete for rewards worth a combined $915,000 (£803,000).
The UK and U.S. federal governments are likewise opening applications for red groups, who will take part in the 3rd stage of the difficulties. Red groups will carefully test the privacy-preserving capabilities of the top-scoring options from the 2nd stage of the difficulties to examine the last winners. Recruitment for red groups is open here, with applications closing on 23 November. Top-scoring red groups will be granted rewards from a combined swimming pool of ~$225,000 (£200,000).
The difficulty issues being taken on by individuals are based upon artificially-generated, or artificial, information sets that are representative of real life usage cases, however include no real customer info. Data being utilized for the monetary criminal offense track is based upon artificial banking information established by worldwide banks BNY Mellon and Deutsche Bank and artificial worldwide deal information developed by SWIFT, the worldwide service provider of secure monetary messaging services, utilizing the MOSTLY AI artificial information platform. Innovators on the general public health track are dealing with an artificial dataset developed by the University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute.
Winning options will be profiled at the 2nd Summit for Democracy, to be assembled by President Joe Biden in 2023.
Julia Lopez, Minister of State for Media, Data, and Digital Infrastructure, said:
Privacy-improving innovations have the prospective to open the power of information to take on significant social difficulties – from global money laundering to reacting to worldwide pandemics – in such a way that appreciates people’ rights. That’s why I’m pleased by the strength of the action to the UK-US reward difficulties, with world class scientists on both sides of the Atlantic jumping to the difficulty of innovating in such a way that supports our shared worths.
John Edwards, UK Information Commissioner, said:
We are happy to be supporting the UK-US Animals reward difficulty to help speed up the advancement and usage of Animals. Animals can help organisations share and utilize individuals’s information properly, legally and safely. That’s why we are providing guidance to the organisations included, building on our brand-new Animals assistance which is out for assessment.
“AI is driving rapid technology change that is based on ever increasing amounts of disparate data, making privacy enhancing technologies increasingly important,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Laurie E. Locascio. “The U.S. UK PET prize challenge provides a global venue to build and showcase cutting-edge and scalable solutions that respect human rights and civil liberties. I am excited by the solutions proposed by these scholars and look forward to their impact on enhancing privacy and bolstering trustworthy AI.”
“These first-of-their-kind international prize challenges are focusing innovators from the US and UK on overcoming the challenge of maturing PETs for practical use cases,” National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said. “The level of participation and caliber of participants in the U.S.-UK PETs prize challenges promise to accelerate the translation of PETs to practice. I’m excited to see the strong start to the prize challenges across the transatlantic research community and look forward to the results in the next phases.”
Contact:
Victoria Fell
Tel: +44 7785 382608
Email: [email protected]
Notes to editors
In the UK, Prizes were granted to the following organisations:
- Corvus Research Limited
- DeepMind and OpenMined*
- Diagonal Works
- GMV
- Faculty
- Featurespace Limited
- Privitar Limited
- University of Cambridge
- University of Liverpool
In the United States, prizes were awarded to the following teams:
- Team MusCAT: scientists from the Broad Institute, MIT, Harvard Business School, UT Austin, University of Toronto
- Team IBM Research
- Team Secret Computers: scientists from Inpher, Inc.
Across both nations, 76 groups went into the reward difficulties. The overall UK-U.S. reward swimming pool throughout all 3 stages represents $1.6 million (£1.3 million).
Planning for the difficulties is being led by the U.K. Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) and Innovate UK, and the U.S. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The U.S. difficulty is moneyed and administered collectively by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. National Science Foundation.
The reward difficulties were released in July 2022. For more info, please go to the PETs prize challenges website.
*DeepMind and OpenMined have actually selected not to accept any reward funds for this difficulty.
