Category II: PARAPET: Prototype Architecture for Research Advances using Privacy Enhancing Technologies

Category II: PARAPET: Prototype Architecture for Research Advances using Privacy Enhancing Technologies San Diego State University, in partnership with the University of Utah, Arizona State University, and technology partners, is building PARAPET (Prototype Architecture for Research Advances using Privacy Enhancing Technologies), an advanced community cyberinfrastructure prototype centered around Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs). PARAPET is designed to unlock the potential for collaboration and exploration using sensitive data within the national science and engineering research community. PARAPET contributes to the advancement of federal priorities, including future computing technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI), science and technology workforce capacity, and building world-class research cyberinfrastructure. The PARAPET cyberinfrastructure prototype is focused on deploying, operationalizing, and understanding the broader viability of three PETs: differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, and federated learning. A key distinguishing feature of the PETs approach is that a compromise of the cyberinfrastructure does not compromise the data. To support these primitives, PARAPET includes specialized hardware, software, and researcher support needed to explore PETs across a wide range of research domains of critical national importance, including networking, computer science, cybersecurity, life sciences, social sciences, and others. As a prototype advanced cyberinfrastructure, PARAPET will both evaluate the potential of new PETs to reduce operational expense and institutional risk as well as help inform the community’s understanding of how these technologies relate to existing compliance frameworks. Due to the distinct differences in data and privacy requirements between science projects and researchers, a team of technical privacy experts is responsible for onboarding data and tailoring technical and policy requirements, while also alleviating the burden on domain researchers to use the platform with confidence. PARAPET thus addresses the acute national need for cyberinfrastructure to support science using regulated data and will inform future cyberinfrastructures for protected data. -------- This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.