Technology giants such as Apple and AWS have quietly entered privacy computing

With the advent of the digital age, data has become an important resource for enterprises to compete. However, at the same time, the risk of data privacy leakage is also increasing, which has become an important issue of public safety and protection of individual rights. In order to solve this problem, technology giants Google, Apple, and Amazon have entered the field of privacy computing one after another , hoping to protect data privacy and security through privacy computing technology.

Privacy computing technology is a technology that can perform data calculation and analysis without exposing the data itself , which can effectively protect data privacy and security, while supporting data sharing and exchange. In this article, we will introduce the privacy computing products and technologies of these technology giants, and discuss their development and application prospects in the field of privacy computing.

1. Google: Privacy Sandbox

Digital advertising operations need to track, identify, and associate individual users' behaviors in different scenarios. This issue involves privacy risks, so Google has developed a privacy sandbox to specifically address this issue. The privacy sandbox uses privacy computing technology to protect user privacy by adding noise to the operational data of digital advertising .

Attribution is at the heart of digital advertising operations, and attribution requires tracking and identifying individuals. However, this is also a source of risk for privacy violations. The privacy sandbox launched by Google solves this problem by introducing differential privacy technology, but this cannot be perfect. We need to ensure the normal operation of digital advertising while protecting user privacy.

The privacy sandbox solves privacy risks by introducing differential privacy technology. Google adds noise to personal data, and then aggregates a certain amount of personal data, so that other entities in the digital economy can only see the noise-added aggregated data. Actors of the digital economy are developing and experimenting with "noise management strategies" in an effort to "refine" attributions from data to be as accurate as possible. In this way, we can better protect user privacy while ensuring the normal operation of digital advertising.

Google's push for private computing raises two legal issues. One is whether privacy risk relief is sufficient, which involves various types of risks such as differentiation, correlation, and inference. The second is anti-monopoly issues. The privacy sandbox will further strengthen Google’s dominance, reduce the income of various entities in the digital economy, and lack transparency and fairness for small and medium-sized economic entities. We need to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of privacy sandbox and differential privacy technology, and how to balance the relationship between privacy protection and economic development.

2. Apple: A number of measures to protect user privacy

Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi (Craig Federighi) was interviewed during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference and talked about the privacy protection measures released by Apple. He believes that Apple is playing a constructive role in protecting privacy and pointing the way for the entire industry.

Apple has launched a new iCloud Plus subscription service. iCloud Plus adds three new privacy features to existing iCloud subscriptions:

The first is "Hide My Email" , where users can freely share a unique random email address without revealing their real email address;

The second is HomeKit video storage , which allows users to connect unlimited security cameras without affecting video storage in iCloud accounts;

The third is iCloud Private Relay, an online privacy service . iCloud Private Relay is Apple's latest privacy innovation in protecting users' network activities over the years. It allows users to browse the web through the Safari browser, and all information leaving the device will be encrypted. iCloud Private Relay uses a double-hop architecture, and neither Apple nor third-party partners know who the user is and where they are going at the same time.

In addition, Apple has built-in App Privacy Report (App Privacy Report) in iOS, iPadOS and WatchOS, users can easily view sensitive information such as application access to user device microphone and camera, photos or contacts, and health data.

3. Amazon: Privacy data security on the cloud

In the field of cloud computing, as more and more data and applications are stored on the cloud, users are increasingly concerned about data privacy and security. In this context, Amazon began to use privacy computing to provide safer and more reliable cloud computing services .

Amazon has launched a series of products and services related to privacy computing, such as:

AWS Encryption SDK: This is a software development kit that helps developers easily integrate data encryption capabilities into applications to protect data privacy and security.
AWS KMS (Key Management Service): This service provides a secure way to create and manage encryption keys to protect data in the cloud. Customers can use KMS to encrypt and decrypt data and control access to encrypted data.
AWS Private Link (AWS PrivateLink): This is a service that enables customers to access services on AWS through a dedicated and secure network connection without transferring data over the public Internet. This service can help customers protect the privacy and security of data.
AWS Security Manager (AWS Security Hub): This is a central security service that helps customers monitor and manage security events in the cloud, and provides integrated compliance checks and threat detection capabilities. This service can help customers better protect the privacy and security of data.
Amazon Braket: This is a fully managed quantum computing service that helps customers with private computing, including encrypted computing and data privacy protection. This service provides customers with a new way to perform privacy computing, which can better protect data privacy and security.

Amazon has other plans for data privacy and security. For example, Amazon launched Amazon Detective in 2020, a cloud-based security analytics service that helps customers quickly discover and investigate security incidents. Additionally, Amazon has launched AWS Wavelength, a service that places AWS' computing and storage services at the edge close to mobile operators to provide faster response times and better data privacy and security.

Four, finally

The above technology giants have launched their own privacy computing products and technologies, such as Google launched TensorFlow Privacy, Apple launched Differential Privacy, Amazon launched Amazon Braket and so on.

The development and application prospects of these products and technologies are very broad, and more companies will join the privacy computing field in the future. We believe that in the near future, privacy computing technology will become an important means of data security and privacy protection, bringing more convenience and security to people's lives.

PrimiHub is an open source privacy computing platform built by a team of cryptography experts. We focus on sharing technologies and content in privacy computing fields such as data security, cryptography, federated learning, and homomorphic encryption.