Multiparty Computation

Abstract

Organizations share data for collective purposes: new opportunities are created to allow business enhancement. While new businesses contribute to economic development, valid reasons exist to inhibit data sharing (e.g. citizen privacy and sensitive information). Multi Party computation (MPC) provides a solution to these risks. However, MPC implementation remains limited, and we lack knowledge about the willingness to use MPC-enabled applications in organizational settings. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of MPC on organizational willingness to contribute protected data for collective purposes. We ask: "To what extent does MPC affect organizational perception of the contribution of protected data?" From the quantitative assessment, MPC enhances organizational perceptions of data contribution and therefore significantly increases perceived trustworthiness and perceived security. Both of these aspects are found to be important and of approximately equal importance when considering contribution of protected data. That is, both are considered as the locus of willingness to contribute protected data through a web-based application. From the qualitative assessment, it is assumed that the positive contribution of MPC herein is because it allows data contribution independently from conventional data processors, which typically have access to raw data. The extent to which MPC increases perceptions depends on the extent to which an organization is able to assert the trustworthiness of the application and the security measure used by the application. MPC also affects perceived relative advantage. A weak correlation is reported between perceived relative advantage and willingness to contribute protected data, suggesting that relative importance is not perceived to be important as perceived trustworthiness and perceived security with respect to willingness to contribute protected data. Nevertheless, MPC also seems to enhance perceived relative advantage. Finally, although the relative advantage of MPC was not perceived as necessary, several findings are reported to further enhance the utility provided by an MPC application.