Counting with STAR: Shipping a Privacy-Preserving Telemetry System to Millions of Users

Explore how Brave Software developed and implemented STAR, an efficient and cost-effective privacy-preserving telemetry system, in this 15-minute conference talk from PEPR '23. Discover the research process, development stages, and scaling techniques used to create a system that formalizes privacy guarantees for data collection. Learn about the customizable parameters that allow developers to adjust privacy levels based on data sensitivity, enabling a wide range of previously risky use cases. Examine the evaluation of existing options, the applied research to production pipeline, and real-world applications of this privacy-friendly telemetry system. Gain insights into lessons learned and potential future improvements in privacy-preserving data collection techniques.