Ant International, a leading global payment, digitisation and fintech solutions provider for merchants and financial institutions, announced that it has completed an upgrade for Alipay+, Ant International’s global wallet gateway solution, with all critical operations now PETs-enabled. Alipay+ is the first digital payment solution to fully deploy PETs in a live setting, providing the 1.8 billion e-wallet users connected to its network greater assurance of data privacy.
Strengthening data privacy for cross-border digital payments
PETs comprise digital tools and techniques that enable businesses to process and analyse data while ensuring that commercially sensitive information remains protected. With the application of PETs, all data processed by Alipay+ is encrypted before processing, and remains unidentifiable by Ant International throughout the entire payment process.
For Alipay+ partners, this supports:
- Proactive compliance with data privacy regulations, maintaining continuity of cross-border transaction services amid evolving data sovereignty concerns.
- Increased assurance of data privacy for end-users, without degradation to user experience or current operating requirements.
- Reduction of risk from transmission of sensitive information, as only encrypted data is transferred to Alipay+ for processing.
“Trust in our systems is integral to our ability to deliver secure and efficient digital services to users globally,” said Jiang-Ming Yang, Chief Innovation Officer of Ant International. “This upgrade enables us to safeguard and strengthen that trust, by giving partners and customers assurance that their data remains private throughout the payment lifecycle – even to us.”
To extend the benefits of the technology along the payments chain, Alipay+ e-wallet partners are invited to work with Ant International to onboard PETs into their operations. The PETs codebase will also be open sourced in phases, to ensure that partners have full visibility and control in these deployments.
Ensuring trust remains at the centre of new applications of technology
Ant International’s implementation of PETs is also a prime example of its close collaboration with regulators and public sector organisations, to ensure that emerging applications of technology are developed with trust and compliance at its core.
In Singapore, Ant International worked with the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) to evaluate a proof-of-concept (POC) for PETs-enabled AI prediction model training and utilisation. The POC demonstrates that Ant International can collaborate with an e-wallet partner to improve the efficiency of customer engagement programmes, by jointly training an AI prediction model based on their common customers, without the need to share or transfer original customer data.
The PDPC assessed this use case and has released Practical Guidance on how data should be classified and handled in this scenario, according to Singapore’s current data regulations. For instance, in evaluation of the model training process with multi-party computation implementation, the guidance noted that secret shares generated alone would not constitute personal data for receiving parties. Organisations remain responsible for ensuring that each implementation is sufficiently robust and reliable, and provide reasonable assurance of data protection. These frameworks provide clarity and assurance for Ant International and its partners, and is exemplary of the company’s commitment to ensuring that the deployment of emerging technologies is transparent, fair and inclusive.
Ant International also continues to be an active supporter of initiatives to facilitate learning and experimentation, such as IMDA’s PET Sandbox, which provides opportunities for companies to work with trusted solution providers to pilot use cases of these technologies.
“We are pleased that Ant International’s participation in IMDA’s PET Sandbox has resulted in the deployment of PETs in Alipay+, a global digital payment solution for many. This is a significant milestone that demonstrates Ant International’s commitment in prioritising trust with their partners and customers. PETs can be valuable tools to unlock new data opportunities, without compromising sensitive information, and we encourage more companies to join IMDA’s Sandbox to pilot the use of PETs,” said Ms Denise Wong, assistant chief executive of data innovation and protection, IMDA, and commissioner of PDPC.
Advancing innovation and trust through collaborative research
The full deployment of PETs for Alipay+ is aligned with Ant International’s efforts to leverage cutting-edge research to address real business issues. Through a Master Research Collaboration Agreement, Ant International is partnering with NTU Singapore’s Digital Trust Centre to co-build solutions that protect and enhance trust in digital payments.
The team concluded a research initiative focused on Trusted AI and secure digital infrastructure in its first year. Efforts are continuing for research on the use and deployment of PETs, directed towards supporting cross-border payments on Alipay+.
