Estonia’s Sharemind Earns Acclaim in the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Awards

The Sharemind team has been awarded runner-up honour for the 2017 The Caspar Bowden Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies. Sharemind, a division of Cybernetica, is a modular software suite that allows for multi-party computation with end-to-end encryption.

The team’s study called, “Students and Taxes: A Privacy-Preserving Study Using Secure Computation” focused on using secure multi-party computation to analyse the educational and tax records of Estonian students to determine if employment slowed the graduation rates for students studying Information and Communications Technology curriculums. “The Estonian Tax and Customs Board immediately understood that they, as the organisation ultimately responsible for the safeguarding of citizens' tax data, have now an unprecedented control of what can and what cannot be done with the data,” said Baldur Kubo, project manager.

The Caspar Bowden PET Award is given to researchers who have contributed in the implementation, design, deployment, or theory of privacy enhancing technologies. “We could not be happier! In this project, we had everything - customer pain, technology, legal, economic fit. We built the most complicated secure multi-party computation application ever done and solved a real-world privacy problem for governments and companies,” said co-author and Sharemind creator Dan Bogdanov.

The award-winning case study was produced in coordination with Estonian Centre of Applied Research and utilised statistics from the Estonian Tax and Customs Board and the Ministry of Education and Research. “The support of the Republic of Estonia Information System Authority, Ministry of Education and Research and Data Protection Inspectorate were all paramount in succeeding to prove that full population based analysis can be accomplished without ever decrypting personal data,” Kubo said. The group performed statistical analysis on over 10.6 million records from the two registries.

The award is given annually in memory of Caspar Bowden, long-time data privacy advocate who fought tirelessly to preserve the rights of citizens. The first-place winner of the 2017 award is a group from Princeton and Stanford. The next PET Symposium will take place in Barcelona, Spain in July 2018.

Privacy Policy of sharemind.cyber.ee

This Website collects some Personal Data from its Users.

This document can be printed for reference by using the print command in the settings of any browser.

Owner and Data Controller

Cybernetica AS
Address: Mäealuse 2/1, Tallinn 12618, Estonia
Telephone: +372 639 7991

Owner contact email: sharemind@cyber.ee

Types of Data collected

Among the types of Personal Data that this Website collects, by itself or through third parties, there are: first name; last name; phone number; company name; country; email address; Cookies; Usage Data.

Complete details on each type of Personal Data collected are provided in the dedicated sections of this privacy policy or by specific explanation texts displayed prior to the Data collection.
Personal Data may be freely provided by the User, or, in case of Usage Data, collected automatically when using this Website.
Unless specified otherwise, all Data requested by this Website is mandatory and failure to provide this Data may make it impossible for this Website to provide its services. In cases where this Website specifically states that some Data is not mandatory, Users are free not to communicate this Data without consequences to the availability or the functioning of the Service.
Users who are uncertain about which Personal Data is mandatory are welcome to contact the Owner.
Any use of Cookies – or of other tracking tools — by this Website or by the owners of third-party services used by this Website serves the purpose of providing the Service required by the User, in addition to any other purposes described in the present document and in the Cookie Policy, if available.

Users are responsible for any third-party Personal Data obtained, published or shared through this Website and confirm that they have the third party's consent to provide the Data to the Owner.

Mode and place of processing the Data

Methods of processing

The Owner takes appropriate security measures to prevent unauthorized access, disclosure, modification, or unauthorized destruction of the Data.
The Data processing is carried out using computers and/or IT enabled tools, following organizational procedures and modes strictly related to the purposes indicated. In addition to the Owner, in some cases, the Data may be accessible to certain types of persons in charge, involved with the operation of this Website (administration, sales, marketing, legal, system administration) or external parties (such as third-party technical service providers, mail carriers, hosting providers, IT companies, communications agencies) appointed, if necessary, as Data Processors by the Owner. The updated list of these parties may be requested from the Owner at any time.

Legal basis of processing

The Owner may process Personal Data relating to Users if one of the following applies:

Users have given their consent for one or more specific purposes. Note: Under some legislations the Owner may be allowed to process Personal Data until the User objects to such processing (“opt-out”), without having to rely on consent or any other of the following legal bases. This, however, does not apply, whenever the processing of Personal Data is subject to European data protection law;
provision of Data is necessary for the performance of an agreement with the User and/or for any pre-contractual obligations thereof;
processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the Owner is subject;
processing is related to a task that is carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Owner;
processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the Owner or by a third party.

In any case, the Owner will gladly help to clarify the specific legal basis that applies to the processing, and in particular whether the provision of Personal Data is a statutory or contractual requirement, or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract.

Place

The Data is processed at the Owner's operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located.

Depending on the User's location, data transfers may involve transferring the User's Data to a country other than their own. To find out more about the place of processing of such transferred Data, Users can check the section containing details about the processing of Personal Data.

Users are also entitled to learn about the legal basis of Data transfers to a country outside the European Union or to any international organization governed by public international law or set up by two or more countries, such as the UN, and about the security measures taken by the Owner to safeguard their Data.

If any such transfer takes place, Users can find out more by checking the relevant sections of this document or inquire with the Owner using the information provided in the contact section.

Retention time

Personal Data shall be processed and stored for as long as required by the purpose they have been collected for.

Therefore:

Personal Data collected for purposes related to the performance of a contract between the Owner and the User shall be retained until such contract has been fully performed.
Personal Data collected for the purposes of the Owner’s legitimate interests shall be retained as long as needed to fulfill such purposes. Users may find specific information regarding the legitimate interests pursued by the Owner within the relevant sections of this document or by contacting the Owner.

The Owner may be allowed to retain Personal Data for a longer period whenever the User has given consent to such processing, as long as such consent is not withdrawn. Furthermore, the Owner may be obliged to retain Personal Data for a longer period whenever required to do so for the performance of a legal obligation or upon order of an authority.

Once the retention period expires, Personal Data shall be deleted. Therefore, the right of access, the right to erasure, the right to rectification and the right to data portability cannot be enforced after expiration of the retention period.

The purposes of processing

The Data concerning the User is collected to allow the Owner to provide its Service, comply with its legal obligations, respond to enforcement requests, protect its rights and interests (or those of its Users or third parties), detect any malicious or fraudulent activity, as well as the following: Contacting the User, Analytics, Interaction with external social networks and platforms and Managing contacts and sending messages.

For specific information about the Personal Data used for each purpose, the User may refer to the section “Detailed information on the processing of Personal Data”.

Detailed information on the processing of Personal Data

Personal Data is collected for the following purposes and using the following services:

Analytics

The services contained in this section enable the Owner to monitor and analyze web traffic and can be used to keep track of User behavior.

Matomo (this Website)

Matomo is an analytics software used by this Website to analyze data directly without the help of third parties.

Personal Data processed: Cookies; Usage Data.

Contacting the User

Contact form (this Website)

By filling in the contact form with their Data, the User authorizes this Website to use these details to reply to requests for information, quotes or any other kind of request as indicated by the form’s header.

Personal Data processed: company name; country; email address; first name; last name; phone number.

SDK download

When you download a Software Development Kit (SDK) from This Website, then we store your email address in our internal client relationship management (CRM) software.
We will use that data only to send you information about bug fixes, ask your feedback and propose follow-up activities.
Personal Data collected: email address.

Mailing list or newsletter (this Website)

By registering on the mailing list or for the newsletter, the User’s email address will be added to the contact list of those who may receive email messages containing information of commercial or promotional nature concerning this Website. Your email address might also be added to this list as a result of signing up to this Website or after making a purchase.

Personal Data processed: email address.

Phone contact (this Website)

Users that provided their phone number might be contacted for commercial or promotional purposes related to this Website, as well as for fulfilling support requests.

Personal Data processed: phone number.

Interaction with external social networks and platforms

This type of service allows interaction with social networks or other external platforms directly from the pages of this Website.
The interaction and information obtained through this Website are always subject to the User’s privacy settings for each social network.
This type of service might still collect traffic data for the pages where the service is installed, even when Users do not use it.
It is recommended to log out from the respective services in order to make sure that the processed data on this Website isn’t being connected back to the User’s profile.

Twitter Tweet button and social widgets (Twitter, Inc.)

The Twitter Tweet button and social widgets are services allowing interaction with the Twitter social network provided by Twitter, Inc.

Personal Data processed: Cookies; Usage Data.

Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy.

Managing contacts and sending messages

This type of service makes it possible to manage a database of email contacts, phone contacts or any other contact information to communicate with the User.
These services may also collect data concerning the date and time when the message was viewed by the User, as well as when the User interacted with it, such as by clicking on links included in the message.

Mailchimp (Intuit Inc.)

Mailchimp is an email address management and message sending service provided by Intuit Inc.

Personal Data processed: email address.

Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy.

The rights of Users

Users may exercise certain rights regarding their Data processed by the Owner.

In particular, Users have the right to do the following, to the extent permitted by law:

Withdraw their consent at any time. Users have the right to withdraw consent where they have previously given their consent to the processing of their Personal Data.
Object to processing of their Data. Users have the right to object to the processing of their Data if the processing is carried out on a legal basis other than consent. Further details are provided in the dedicated section below.
Access their Data. Users have the right to learn if Data is being processed by the Owner, obtain disclosure regarding certain aspects of the processing and obtain a copy of the Data undergoing processing.
Verify and seek rectification. Users have the right to verify the accuracy of their Data and ask for it to be updated or corrected.
Restrict the processing of their Data. Users have the right to restrict the processing of their Data. In this case, the Owner will not process their Data for any purpose other than storing it.
Have their Personal Data deleted or otherwise removed. Users have the right to obtain the erasure of their Data from the Owner.
Receive their Data and have it transferred to another controller. Users have the right to receive their Data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and, if technically feasible, to have it transmitted to another controller without any hindrance.
Lodge a complaint. Users have the right to bring a claim before their competent data protection authority.

Details about the right to object to processing

Where Personal Data is processed for a public interest, in the exercise of an official authority vested in the Owner or for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the Owner, Users may object to such processing by providing a ground related to their particular situation to justify the objection.

Users must know that, however, should their Personal Data be processed for direct marketing purposes, they can object to that processing at any time, free of charge and without providing any justification. Where the User objects to processing for direct marketing purposes, the Personal Data will no longer be processed for such purposes. To learn whether the Owner is processing Personal Data for direct marketing purposes, Users may refer to the relevant sections of this document.

How to exercise these rights

Any requests to exercise User rights can be directed to the Owner through the contact details provided in this document. These requests can be exercised free of charge and will be answered by the Owner as early as possible and always within one month, providing Users with the information required by law. Any rectification or erasure of Personal Data or restriction of processing will be communicated by the Owner to each recipient, if any, to whom the Personal Data has been disclosed unless this proves impossible or involves disproportionate effort. At the Users’ request, the Owner will inform them about those recipients.

Additional information about Data collection and processing

Legal action

The User's Personal Data may be used for legal purposes by the Owner in Court or in the stages leading to possible legal action arising from improper use of this Website or the related Services.
The User declares to be aware that the Owner may be required to reveal personal data upon request of public authorities.

Additional information about User's Personal Data

In addition to the information contained in this privacy policy, this Website may provide the User with additional and contextual information concerning particular Services or the collection and processing of Personal Data upon request.

System logs and maintenance

For operation and maintenance purposes, this Website and any third-party services may collect files that record interaction with this Website (System logs) or use other Personal Data (such as the IP Address) for this purpose.

Information not contained in this policy

More details concerning the collection or processing of Personal Data may be requested from the Owner at any time. Please see the contact information at the beginning of this document.

How “Do Not Track” requests are handled

This Website does not support “Do Not Track” requests.
To determine whether any of the third-party services it uses honor the “Do Not Track” requests, please read their privacy policies.

Changes to this privacy policy

The Owner reserves the right to make changes to this privacy policy at any time by notifying its Users on this page and possibly within this Website and/or - as far as technically and legally feasible - sending a notice to Users via any contact information available to the Owner. It is strongly recommended to check this page often, referring to the date of the last modification listed at the bottom.

Should the changes affect processing activities performed on the basis of the User’s consent, the Owner shall collect new consent from the User, where required.

Definitions and legal references

Personal Data (or Data)

Any information that directly, indirectly, or in connection with other information — including a personal identification number — allows for the identification or identifiability of a natural person.

Usage Data

Information collected automatically through this Website (or third-party services employed in this Website), which can include: the IP addresses or domain names of the computers utilized by the Users who use this Website, the URI addresses (Uniform Resource Identifier), the time of the request, the method utilized to submit the request to the server, the size of the file received in response, the numerical code indicating the status of the server's answer (successful outcome, error, etc.), the country of origin, the features of the browser and the operating system utilized by the User, the various time details per visit (e.g., the time spent on each page within the Application) and the details about the path followed within the Application with special reference to the sequence of pages visited, and other parameters about the device operating system and/or the User's IT environment.

User

The individual using this Website who, unless otherwise specified, coincides with the Data Subject.

Data Subject

The natural person to whom the Personal Data refers.

Data Processor (or Data Supervisor)

The natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which processes Personal Data on behalf of the Controller, as described in this privacy policy.

Data Controller (or Owner)

The natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of Personal Data, including the security measures concerning the operation and use of this Website. The Data Controller, unless otherwise specified, is the Owner of this Website.

This Website (or this Application)

The means by which the Personal Data of the User is collected and processed.

Service

The service provided by this Website as described in the relative terms (if available) and on this site/application.

European Union (or EU)

Unless otherwise specified, all references made within this document to the European Union include all current member states to the European Union and the European Economic Area.

Cookie

Cookies are Trackers consisting of small sets of data stored in the User's browser.

Tracker

Tracker indicates any technology - e.g Cookies, unique identifiers, web beacons, embedded scripts, e-tags and fingerprinting - that enables the tracking of Users, for example by accessing or storing information on the User’s device.

Legal information

This privacy statement has been prepared based on provisions of multiple legislations, including Art. 13/14 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation).

This privacy policy relates solely to this Website, if not stated otherwise within this document.

Latest update: May 11, 2023

Cookie Policy of sharemind.cyber.ee

This document informs Users about the technologies that help this Website to achieve the purposes described below. Such technologies allow the Owner to access and store information (for example by using a Cookie) or use resources (for example by running a script) on a User’s device as they interact with this Website.

For simplicity, all such technologies are defined as "Trackers" within this document – unless there is a reason to differentiate.
For example, while Cookies can be used on both web and mobile browsers, it would be inaccurate to talk about Cookies in the context of mobile apps as they are a browser-based Tracker. For this reason, within this document, the term Cookies is only used where it is specifically meant to indicate that particular type of Tracker.

Some of the purposes for which Trackers are used may also require the User's consent. Whenever consent is given, it can be freely withdrawn at any time following the instructions provided in this document.

This Website uses Trackers managed directly by the Owner (so-called “first-party” Trackers) and Trackers that enable services provided by a third-party (so-called “third-party” Trackers). Unless otherwise specified within this document, third-party providers may access the Trackers managed by them.
The validity and expiration periods of Cookies and other similar Trackers may vary depending on the lifetime set by the Owner or the relevant provider. Some of them expire upon termination of the User’s browsing session.
In addition to what’s specified in the descriptions within each of the categories below, Users may find more precise and updated information regarding lifetime specification as well as any other relevant information — such as the presence of other Trackers — in the linked privacy policies of the respective third-party providers or by contacting the Owner.

Activities strictly necessary for the operation of this Website and delivery of the Service

This Website uses so-called “technical” Cookies and other similar Trackers to carry out activities that are strictly necessary for the operation or delivery of the Service.

Other activities involving the use of Trackers

Experience enhancement

This Website uses Trackers to provide a personalized user experience by improving the quality of preference management options, and by enabling interaction with external networks and platforms.

Interaction with external social networks and platforms

Twitter Tweet button and social widgets (Twitter, Inc.)

The Twitter Tweet button and social widgets are services allowing interaction with the Twitter social network provided by Twitter, Inc.

Personal Data processed: Cookies and Usage Data.

Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy.

Storage duration:

personalization_id: 2 years

Measurement

This Website uses Trackers to measure traffic and analyze User behavior with the goal of improving the Service.

Analytics services managed directly by this Website

The services contained in this section allow the Owner to collect and manage analytics through the use of first-party Trackers.

Matomo (this Website)

Matomo is an analytics software used by this Website to analyze data directly without the help of third parties.

Personal Data processed: Cookies and Usage Data.

Storage duration:

_pk_cvar*: 30 minutes
_pk_hsr*: 30 minutes
_pk_id*: 2 years
_pk_ref*: 7 months
_pk_ses*: 30 minutes
_pk_testcookie*: duration of the session

There are various ways to manage Tracker related preferences and to provide and withdraw consent, where relevant:

Users can manage preferences related to Trackers from directly within their own device settings, for example, by preventing the use or storage of Trackers.

Additionally, whenever the use of Trackers is based on consent, Users can provide or withdraw such consent by setting their preferences within the cookie notice or by updating such preferences accordingly via the relevant consent-preferences widget, if available.

It is also possible, via relevant browser or device features, to delete previously stored Trackers, including those used to remember the User’s initial consent.

Other Trackers in the browser’s local memory may be cleared by deleting the browsing history.

With regard to any third-party Trackers, Users can manage their preferences and withdraw their consent via the related opt-out link (where provided), by using the means indicated in the third party's privacy policy, or by contacting the third party.

Locating Tracker Settings

Users can, for example, find information about how to manage Cookies in the most commonly used browsers at the following addresses:

Users may also manage certain categories of Trackers used on mobile apps by opting out through relevant device settings such as the device advertising settings for mobile devices, or tracking settings in general (Users may open the device settings and look for the relevant setting).

Consequences of denying consent

Users are free to decide whether or not to grant consent. However, please note that Trackers help this Website to provide a better experience and advanced functionalities to Users (in line with the purposes outlined in this document). Therefore, in the absence of the User's consent, the Owner may be unable to provide related features.

Owner and Data Controller

Cybernetica AS
Address: Mäealuse 2/1, Tallinn 12618, Estonia
Telephone: +372 639 7991

Owner contact email: sharemind@cyber.ee

Since the use of third-party Trackers through this Website cannot be fully controlled by the Owner, any specific references to third-party Trackers are to be considered indicative. In order to obtain complete information, Users are kindly requested to consult the privacy policies of the respective third-party services listed in this document.

Given the objective complexity surrounding tracking technologies, Users are encouraged to contact the Owner should they wish to receive any further information on the use of such technologies by this Website.

Definitions and legal references

Personal Data (or Data)

Usage Data

User

The individual using this Website who, unless otherwise specified, coincides with the Data Subject.

Data Subject

The natural person to whom the Personal Data refers.

Data Processor (or Data Supervisor)

The natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which processes Personal Data on behalf of the Controller, as described in this privacy policy.

Data Controller (or Owner)

This Website (or this Application)

The means by which the Personal Data of the User is collected and processed.

Service

The service provided by this Website as described in the relative terms (if available) and on this site/application.

European Union (or EU)

Unless otherwise specified, all references made within this document to the European Union include all current member states to the European Union and the European Economic Area.

Cookie

Cookies are Trackers consisting of small sets of data stored in the User's browser.

Tracker

Legal information

This privacy statement has been prepared based on provisions of multiple legislations, including Art. 13/14 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation).

This privacy policy relates solely to this Website, if not stated otherwise within this document.

Latest update: May 11, 2023

Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award

Privacy Policy of sharemind.cyber.ee

Owner and Data Controller

Types of Data collected

Mode and place of processing the Data

Methods of processing

Legal basis of processing

Place

Retention time

The purposes of processing

Detailed information on the processing of Personal Data

Analytics

Matomo (this Website)

Contacting the User

Contact form (this Website)

SDK download

Mailing list or newsletter (this Website)

Phone contact (this Website)

Interaction with external social networks and platforms

Twitter Tweet button and social widgets (Twitter, Inc.)

Managing contacts and sending messages

Mailchimp (Intuit Inc.)

The rights of Users

Details about the right to object to processing

How to exercise these rights

Additional information about Data collection and processing

Legal action

Additional information about User's Personal Data

System logs and maintenance

Information not contained in this policy

How “Do Not Track” requests are handled

Changes to this privacy policy

Definitions and legal references

Personal Data (or Data)

Usage Data

User

Data Subject

Data Processor (or Data Supervisor)

Data Controller (or Owner)

This Website (or this Application)

Service

European Union (or EU)

Cookie

Tracker

Legal information

Cookie Policy of sharemind.cyber.ee

Activities strictly necessary for the operation of this Website and delivery of the Service

Other activities involving the use of Trackers

Experience enhancement

Interaction with external social networks and platforms

Twitter Tweet button and social widgets (Twitter, Inc.)

Measurement

Analytics services managed directly by this Website

Matomo (this Website)

How to manage preferences and provide or withdraw consent

Locating Tracker Settings

Consequences of denying consent

Owner and Data Controller

Definitions and legal references

Personal Data (or Data)

Usage Data

User

Data Subject

Data Processor (or Data Supervisor)

Data Controller (or Owner)

This Website (or this Application)

Service

European Union (or EU)

Cookie

Tracker

Legal information