Ellison Anne Williams, CEO and founder, Enveil: "While the category may fall outside of what would traditionally be considered relevant to advances in the space industry, Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) will play a pivotal role in the exploration of space communications in 2023.
The reason can be summarized in one word: data. While there are clearly many unique and interesting aspects about the space environment, the ability to securely and privately leverage the vast volume of space-related data across boundaries at scale is foundational to advancing our collective capabilities.
No matter where it takes place and the value it can provide, ubiquitous data usage is not without its challenges. Data is the backbone of the digital economy and organizations across all sectors are increasingly having to balance value extraction and risk management. The pace of change has left regulators and lawmakers scrambling to keep up, which frequently leads to a lack of clarity. PETs enable, enhance, and preserve the privacy of data throughout its lifecycle, allowing entities to achieve secure and private data usage without compromising data ownership or exposing sensitive indicators or insights.
The PETs momentum began to build in the space arena this year as organizations worked together to design and build new space-based communications. In July 2022, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) announced the launch of its hybrid space architecture program (HSA), which aims to integrate commercial and government space assets to provide global, secure internet connectivity across multiple domains for commercial, civil, and military users, including international partners. This use case requires secure data sharing and collaboration, capabilities that can be uniquely provided by PETs.
Leveraging the power of PETs, organizations can extract insights, cross-match, search, and analyze space-related data at scale in ways that are not otherwise possible. These capabilities are being woven into the fabric of projects like the HSA to help leverage both commercial and government space assets across diverse orbits to provide secure, assured, and low-latency data communications anywhere on and off Earth. In 2023, PETs will significantly help shape space as the mission landscape of the future where data interoperability, security, and access are critical to advancing any collaborative effort."
Read the full article at Verdict.