Data Station: Delegated, Trustworthy, and Auditable Computation to Enable Data-Sharing Consortia with a Data Escrow

Abstract: 

Pooling and sharing data increases and distributes its value. But since data cannot be revoked once shared, scenarios that require controlled release of data for regulatory, privacy, and legal reasons default to not sharing. Because selectively controlling what data to release is difficult, the few data-sharing consortia that exist are often built around data-sharing agreements resulting from long and tedious one-off negotiations.

In this talk, I will present Data Station, a data escrow designed to enable the formation of data-sharing consortia. Data owners share data with the escrow knowing it will not be released without their consent. Data users delegate their computation to the escrow. The data escrow relies on delegated computation to execute queries without releasing the data first. The Data Station leverages hardware enclaves to generate trust among participants and exploit the centralization of data and computation to generate an audit log.

Finally, I will contextualize the design and implementation of Data Station in a larger research agenda that explores "the value of data", the "economics of data", and "data markets".