HomomorphicEncryption.org is an open consortium consisting of industry, government, and academic partners, dedicated to the advancement of secure computation. This was the 7th workshop organised by the group, with the first held in 2017.

Dr Player introduces the Security Breakout Session at the 7th HomomorphicEncryption.org Standards Workshop

The 7th HomomorphicEncryption.org Standards Workshop took place in Salt Lake City, Utah on 13 October 2024. The event was organised by the HomomorphicEncryption.org Steering Committee, which includes Dr Rachel Player, Senior Lecturer in Information Security in the Information Security Group. Alongside updates on formal standardisation processes, the programme included sessions on software tools for developing and benchmarking homomorphic encryption solutions, hardware acceleration approaches, and industry applications of homomorphic encryption.

A breakout session on security in homomorphic encryption also took place, which was led by Dr Player alongside Dr Yuriy Polyakov (Duality Technologies) and Dr Ro Cammarota (Intel). The session focussed on developing community consensus on the recent document “Security Guidelines for Implementing Homomorphic Encryption” which has been recently submitted for publication and which is co-authored by a large team including Dr Player and CDT researcher Erin Hales. This document supports the ongoing ISO/IEC effort to standardise Fully Homomorphic Encryption and will be a critical reference in the eventual standards.

Dr Player commented: “It was a pleasure to co-organise this workshop and I would like to thank all participants for the very productive discussions. I am looking forward to seeing everyone at the next workshop!”

More information about HomomorphicEncryption.org can be found at: https://homomorphicencryption.org

The Security Guidelines paper can be found at: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/463