Unlocking the Value of Sensitive Data with Privacy‑Enhancing Technologies

Organisations across every sector are sitting on vast amounts of sensitive data that could deliver major economic and social value — if only it could be used safely.

Privacy‑enhancing technologies (PETs) make this possible.

This open to all, interactive online event is designed to demystify privacy‑enhancing technologies, showcase what they enable in practice, and explore why adoption remains low, despite being technically mature. Whether your organisation holds sensitive data, wants to collaborate with partners more effectively, or build technology solutions, this event will help your organisation understand how PETs can unlock new opportunities without compromising privacy.

Privacy‑enhancing technologies allow organisations to analyse, share, and compute data without exposing the underlying sensitive information. This enables better collaboration, innovation and insight generation while maintaining trust, compliance, and control.

At this event, the focus will be on the capabilities these technologies can unlock and what this means for real‑world use today.

Attendees will gain practical explanations of how PETs can help organisations to: 

• Use sensitive data more effectively 

• Work with partners who cannot (or will not) share raw data 

• Address growing privacy, regulatory and trust challenges 

• Enable new data‑driven services, products and public benefit 

• Understand what’s possible now
  Learn how organisations can extract value from sensitive or restricted data without sharing it directly. 

• Discover real‑world use cases
  Explore practical examples of PET‑enabled capabilities such as privacy‑preserving analytics, secure collaboration across datasets, and confidential AI. 

• Help shape future support and programmes
  By understanding the real barriers to adoption — from awareness and skills to cost, risk, and organisational readiness — initiatives can be designed to be more effective in unlocking opportunity for UK organisations. 

This event is designed for a broad, non‑specialist audience. No advanced technical knowledge is required. 

It will be particularly valuable for: 

• Organisations with sensitive data
  Including public sector bodies, regulated industries, data owners, and research organisations. 

• Business leaders and decision‑makers
  Strategy, innovation, digital, data, legal, privacy, and risk leaders exploring new ways to use data. 

• Technical and data professionals
  Analysts, engineers, architects, and IT teams interested in privacy‑preserving data use. 

• Technology providers and consultancies
  Offering, building, or exploring PET‑based or data‑sharing solutions. 

Sectors where data‑sharing challenges are especially acute — such as healthcare, energy, finance, supply chains, transport, and the public sector — may find this particularly relevant.

10:00 –10:05 | Welcome from Digital Catapult

10:05  – 10:25 | What are Privacy-Enhancing Technologies and what capabilities do they unlock?
Speaker: Tim Wood, Cryptography Engineer, Digital Catapult

10:25 – 10:45 | What data-sharing challenges arise with sensitive data and where are the biggest opportunities?
Speaker: Dr Charlie Kenward, Research Clinical Lead & SRO at South West Secure Data Environment 

10:45 – 11:05 | How do Privacy‑Enhancing Technologies work in practice, and where are they already creating value?
Speaker: Róisín McCarthy, CEO & Founder of Verifoxx 

11:05-11:20 | Panel

11:20 –11:30 | Reflections and next steps
Key takeaways from the session, emerging priorities for organisations, and areas for further collaboration or action.