OTTAWA/ TORONTO, November 1, 2022 -- Innovate Cities is proud to announce our partnership with Canadian technology provider Replica Analytics, an Aetion company. Replica Analytics is the premier technology- based Synthetic Data Generation (SDG) technology provider to the healthcare industry, developing software for generating synthetic data that protects the personal privacy of data subjects and maintains the statistical properties of real data. Through this partnership, Innovate Cities will leverage Replica’s SDG technologies for CityShield, Innovate Cities’ Data Trust, which is designed for safe data sharing. Replica will create privacy-preserving, non-identifiable, synthetic versions of any personally identifiable information, so that this data can be shared while protecting privacy. Innovate Cities shares Replica Analytics’ commitment to data privacy, and to the application of de-identified data for the greater good.
“To innovate, organizations need to leverage data, but they face many challenges obtaining access to realistic datasets while at the same time preserving privacy in a manner consistent with contemporary regulations. Synthetic data generation is a powerful technology that is gaining rapid adoption to help solve this problem,” says Dr. Khaled El Emam, SVP and GM of Replica Analytics.
“Synthetic data maintain the statistical properties of real data while simultaneously ensuring that privacy risks are totally minimized, thereby supporting responsible data sharing and enabling AI efforts, as well as many other innovations.”
The Innovate Cities team is fully aligned with Replica Analytics’ commitment to privacy protection, data analysis, machine learning, and building successful businesses, and our data trust reflects that alignment. In the words of Innovate Cities’ Executive Director, Hugh O’Reilly, “CityShield, the Innovate Cities Data Trust, is founded on the principles of Privacy By Design. The use of Replica Analytics technology, combined with our governance principles – which include the appointment of Dr. Ann Cavoukian as our independent Chief Privacy Officer – demonstrate the strength of our commitment to the protection of individual privacy.”
Commenting on the partnership between our two organizations, Dr. Ann Cavoukian noted, “I agreed to become the Chief Privacy Officer of CityShield because of the strong commitment Innovate Cities has made to the protection of personal privacy. The Innovate Cities governance model, as well as its unwavering use of technologies like those offered by Replica Analytics, are examples of that strong commitment.”