Data protection regulation does not allow the testing of information systems on personal data. This hinders innovation and the development of new data-driven services (including artificial intelligence). Several European data protection authorities have indicated that synthetic data is not identifiable in the sense of Recital 26 of the General Data Protection Regulation and can be used for testing IT systems. Synthetic data still has to be similar to the original.
New data can be synthesised on the basis of existing data. However, organisations lack the competence and are willing to buy this as a service. Such synthesis requires processing original data. This needs a lawful basis and trust, making it hard to outsource.
In this project, we test data synthesis using secure computing technology that protects original data from the service provider so that synthesis could even be a cloud service that is unable to leak the source data values. The project will result in a service prototype.