A 2021 round-up of 10 articles, media and events about Replica and its solutions

By Replica Analytics staff  Posted On: January 13th, 2022

It’s incredible that we are now in the year 2022. Some say that the pandemic has made it feel like time is standing still. At Replica Analytics, we can assure you it’s been quite the contrary – time flies! As we launch into the new year ahead, and all the possibilities that come with it, we’ve prepared a little round-up of 10 articles, media reports and presentations from 2021 about Replica and its solutions, in no particular order.  

1. Just before the holidays, we published an article in Privacy Laws & Business, which is a well-respected journal read by data protection authorities and privacy practitioners around the world. It’s entitled Enabling health information sharing with synthetic data, a modern privacy enhancing technology that provides highly usable non-identifiable data. The publication is subscription-based, but you can however find an online excerpt here.
2. CPO Magazine, a must-read resource for chief privacy officers, also ran one of our articles last year – a piece we wrote entitled Could synthetic data be the future of data sharing?, which offered an introduction to the topic. You can read the article here.
3. We were very interested when the Norwegian data protection authority stated that an organization could have avoided a hefty GDPR fine if it had used synthetic instead of real data for sharing. In its report on their privacy breach, it strongly recommended synthetic data for software testing. We wrote about this important development in a blog entitled Norwegian data protection authority strongly recommends synthetic data for software testing, which you can read here.
4. We were featured on one the top-10 privacy podcasts, ThatTechPod, a podcast that focuses on eDiscovery, cybersecurity, data privacy and tech innovations. The episode, entitled, Deciphering Deep Fakes & Synthetic Data, was a short and (we think) entertaining overview of synthetic data generation. You can listen to it here.
5. Over the course of the year, we saw generous coverage about all the exciting predictions global research and advisory companies Garnter and Forrester were making about the rapid adoption of synthetic data as a modern privacy enhancing technology (PET). We summarized their predictions, and what we think they mean. You can read our blog, entitled Predictions and resolutions for synthetic data here and another entitled New Gartner survey suggests synthetic data is the future of data sharing here.
6. With legal regimes evolving around the world, it’s important that innovative PETs like synthetic data are regulated reasonably. In collaboration with lawyer Mike Hintze, we produced an opinion piece, entitled 10 Recommendations for Regulating Non-identifiable Data, which was picked up by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) Privacy Advisor. You can read the IAPP article here and our more detailed report here.
7. We also saw some very positive business news in 2021. An interview by Ottawa Business Journal resulted in an article about our company, entitled Ottawa’s Replica Analytics Using Synthetic Data to Ease Medical Researchers’ Pain, which you can read here. It offered an introduction to the technology, the progress we achieved and a sense of our background and mission. Meanwhile, the new Radical Ventures in AI in Healthcare in Canada map, which you’ll find here, included Replica Analytics as exemplar in its market category. It was also nice to appear in the list of Top Information Technology Start-ups and Companies in Ottawa, which you’ll find here.
8. We announced our participation in the Alberta Data Synthesis Project, a very exciting made-in-Canada initiative involving the creation a synthetic data set that mirrors a provincial health-care system. It’s a true collaboration – sponsored by Edmonton non-profit Health Cities, in partnership with the School of Public Health, the Institute of Health Economics, Merck and Replica Analytics, with advice from Alberta Innovates and the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta. You can read an article the University of Alberta wrote about it, entitled Even better than the real thing, simulated anonymized data could be the key to health care innovations, which you’ll find here.
9. We’ve devoted a lot of time over the past year to helping organizations understand what synthetic data generation is, how it’s done, as well as addressing privacy and utility questions. We’re often asked what synthetic data can be used for, in practice. Discover AI published a great paper, entitled the 7 Key Use Cases for Synthetic Data in the Pharmaceutical Industry. We summarized it here and you can read the full paper here.
10. Last, but certainly not least, along with Health Cities, we co-organized the 2021 Synthetic Data Summit, where participants saw multiple presentations of case studies and experience with the deployment of synthetic data to enable data access for research and different types of secondary analysis. The virtual event included examples from academia, government, and the life sciences industry. Presenters included experts from Merck, Janssen, Novartis, the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others. You can watch it here. There are also many other great events and webinars available on our KnowledgeBase on our website, and much more to come in 2022. Stay tuned!