Context
This paper explores the insights from a roundtable event hosted by the Financial Conduct Authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, and the Alan Turing Institute. In an era of increasingly digitalised financial services, the financial services industry generates a vast amount of data which has the potential to drive innovation while also improving the efficiency and effectiveness of products and services in the sector. However, the need to protect peoples’ privacy places conditions on sharing this data.
Key points to note
- Synthetic data uses a mathematical model or algorithm to generate statistically realistic, but ‘artificial’ data. Not only does synthetic data enable data sharing in a privacy-preserving manner; it can help organisations to better harness the power of their data by mitigating data quality issues, modelling new and emerging scenarios, and protecting commercially sensitive data.
- The paper provides useful definitions of ‘utility’, ‘fidelity’ and ‘privacy’, and sets out some next steps setting out how the FCA, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Alan Turing Institute will continue to work together.
- The paper sets out some key insights under three headings:
- validating utility and fidelity;
- validating privacy; and
- approaches to advancing synthetic data.
Next actions
None – for information and awareness.