Public-key encryption is a highly developed technology commonly used to build web communication solutions, disk encryption, and software patch distribution. However, cryptographically controlled access to the data or the program managing the data was not possible until now. This barrier is overcome by Functional Encryption, a new, versatile, and powerful model for encryption systems.
FENTEC's goal is to develop functional encryption as an efficient alternative to the traditional all-or-nothing encryption approach, allowing partial views of encrypted data and improving system security. A multidisciplinary team of cryptographers, software experts, hardware specialists, and IT industry representatives are working on the project to develop efficient and innovative functional encryption systems capable of adapting to a wide range of scenarios. FENTEC designs, develops, implements, and demonstrates the usefulness of real-world functional encryption applications, offering tangible benefits to the IT industry and users who need to operate in environments where data confidentiality and privacy are essential.

The security, efficiency, expressiveness, and versatility of this new approach will be demonstrated in three use cases. The first is digital currency, designed to preserve privacy by applying flexible audit models. The second addresses anonymous data analysis, enabling the calculation of statistics on encrypted data while protecting fundamental European data protection and privacy rights. The final use case focuses on the loss-resistant processing of data from Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
With an estimated budget of €4 million, FENTEC will develop new, functional encryption systems capable of increasing trust in European IT services.
The project, which began in January 2018, brings together a consortium coordinated by Atos. With partners such as Ecole Normale Supérieure (France), Hochschule Flensburg (Germany), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), University of Helsinki (Finland), Nagravision (Switzerland), XLAB (Slovenia), University of Edinburgh (UK), and Wallix (France).
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