Project description
Accelerating the processing of fully homomorphic encrypted data
Data encryption, essential for protecting private data that is stored and transmitted, is increasingly implemented. However, the protection it offers can impede the data’s use and interaction with legitimate applications or in today’s multicloud environments. Decryption defeats the purpose. Computing on encrypted data, and more specifically, fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), is an emerging type of cryptography in which the data can be used normally even while encrypted. However, this is currently very slow and cumbersome. Funded by the European Research Council, the BELFORT MATCH project aims to move its ultrafast hardware processor for FHE from lab to proof of concept, demonstrating it in a realistic environment where it is integrated into open-source and commercial FHE applications.
Objective
"The world has become one global village, strongly connected by the internet. Users, applications, and companies produce huge amounts of data. This data is mostly very private (health, financial, commercial data, etc.), requiring organizations to encrypt the data when storing or transmitting it. In Europe, fortunately, our GDPR regulations are very strict about this. On the other hand, many legitimate applications want to inspect or match the data with some database. Examples are matching encrypted names with a red list, providing privacy in financial transactions, or matching encrypted DNA snippets in a database.
A solution to these conflicting requirements is offered by a new field in cryptography: computing on encrypted data (COED), and more specifically, fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). With FHE, data sits encrypted in the cloud. The data holder, i.e. the remote server, has no knowledge and is unable to decrypt the data. The magic of FHE is that operations can still be performed on the data, even though it remains encrypted. Unfortunately, it is currently too slow and too cumbersome to be used in practice. Within our ERC grant BELFORT, which focuses on ""Hardware Acceleration for Computing on Encrypted Data"", a novel hardware processor demonstrates orders of magnitude speed-up for essential operations in FHE.
This POC aims to move from our academic proof of concept into a full-stack project integrated into open-source and commercial FHE libraries. We then plan to run a demo on an application of database look-up operations (‘keyword matching’), as they appear in many FHE applications.
The ultimate goal of this project is to make operations on encrypted data efficient enough to perform them on the fly in a cloud setting. When a user formulates privacy-preserving encrypted queries to a server, it should be imperceptible that the operations are occurring in the encrypted domain. Being able to answer a query on the fly without delay will make this goal happen."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences internet
- natural sciences computer and information sciences databases
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics DNA
- natural sciences computer and information sciences computer security cryptography
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-POC
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
3000 LEUVEN
Belgium
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.