TCS and Stanford University Sign R&D Pact for Data Privacy

MUMBAI, India, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Tata Consultancy Services, a leading global technology services organization, announced that it has entered into a 5-year Research and Development collaboration with Stanford University, one of the leading academic institutions in the U.S., for research in the critical area of data privacy.

TCS and the Computer Science department at Stanford University will work on joint projects focused in the area of data privacy. The projects will be selected so that genuine collaboration can take place with TCS scientists working in the area of security and data privacy at the Tata Research Development and Design Centre (TRDDC), the company's software engineering research centre in Pune, India.

Stanford University plays a key role in National Science Foundation-led initiatives to accelerate research into security and data privacy. It is part of TRUST -- Team for Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology -- a multi-university initiative that includes UC Berkeley, Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University as well as industrial partners like Cisco Systems, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Sun and Symantec.

In addition to TRUST, the Stanford Security Lab leads the NSF-sponsored Privacy, Obligations, and Rights in Technologies of Information Assessment (PORTIA) project on privacy and computer security.

Stanford computer science Professor John Mitchell (a co-principal investigator of TRUST) as well as computer science Professor Rajeev Motwani and computer science and electrical engineering Professor Hector Garcia-Molina will work closely with TCS researchers on this critical area of data security. Research staff from TRDDC will be spending extended periods of time at Stanford University and experts from Stanford will also visit the Pune research centre. The 5-year collaborative research project on data security and privacy started from 1st January 2006 and TCS is making a substantial financial contribution to the research project.

As part of the collaboration, TCS will become an industrial partner on data privacy in the new TRUST initiative as well as a member of the Stanford Computer Forum: Industry Affiliates Program.

"As a global technology services company, TCS believes in investing in the critical technologies for the future and the collaboration with Stanford University will complement and enhance the work being done by TCS' R&D teams in the area of data privacy," said S. Ramadorai, CEO and MD of TCS.

"A number of TCS customers have expressed the need for data privacy tools and this collaboration with Stanford University will help TCS provide leading edge data masking tools for clients to securely transmit data," Mr. Ramadorai added.

"The collaboration with TCS is an exciting opportunity to engage India's high technical and scientific skills to help accelerate progress in this important field of data privacy," said James Plummer, the Dean of the School of Engineering at Stanford University.

"Stanford has been a prominent centre in computer security since the ground-breaking work done on public-key cryptography more than 25 years ago," Dr. Plummer added.

"Stanford is one of the leading U.S. universities working in the area of data privacy and TCS' research collaboration in this area is a clear indication of our commitment to new technologies and gives us is a strong differentiator versus other service companies," said Mathai Joseph, head of TRDDC.

TCS has made considerable progress in the field of data privacy and its data masking tool, Masketeer(TM) was released in October last year. The tool masks personal and sensitive information in such a way that the resultant masked data provides a good balance of data utility along with data privacy, and is currently under evaluation and testing by customers.

About the Stanford School of Engineering

Stanford Engineering is home to more than 230 faculty members and more than 3,000 graduate and undergraduate students in nine academic departments. Among the larger and higher-ranked departments are computer science and electrical engineering, where several faculty members and students study a variety of electronic security and privacy issues. Among Stanford's historical contributions to computer security was the first publication of a Public Key Cryptography system in 1977.

About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS)

Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) is the world leading information technology consulting, services, business process outsourcing and engineering services organization that envisioned and pioneered the adoption of the flexible global business practices that today enable companies to operate more efficiently and produce more value. TCS achieved this by creating and perfecting a unique method of global deployment and delivery of high quality, high value services and products in IT consulting and business process outsourcing. Known as the "Global Delivery Model," this strategic services delivery concept has reshaped the IT services industry.

More than 95% of TCS customers reward the company's reliability, passion, creativity, and unique ability to handle the broadest range of their IT needs by continually extending and deepening their partnerships with TCS. With over 50,000 of the world's best trained IT consultants located in 34 countries, TCS is uniquely positioned to deliver its flexible world class services seamlessly to any location. TCS reported consolidated revenues of $2.24 billion (U.S.) in the fiscal year 2004-2005. The company is listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in India. For more information: http://www.tcs.com/