Tech Informed: Technology-enabled path to unlocking global data value

Excerpt:

Over the past two decades, there has been a significant increase in global data usage across verticals. Corresponding with this growth is the advancement of data-hungry artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, as well as data protection technologies that allow these business-enabling tools to safely and securely leverage data.

For many organizations, data is now recognized as one of their most valuable assets due to the crucial role it plays in competitive differentiation and business success. However, while data holds tremendous potential for advancing business outcomes, it also carries the potential to elevate risk.

Companies need to protect the usage of data and prevent sensitive information from being exposed, manipulated, stolen, or otherwise compromised. Homomorphic encryption (HE), a key pillar of Privacy Enhancing Technologies, is helping directly address these challenges.

Frequently hailed as the ‘holy grail’ of encryption, HE offers a unique ability to secure the usage of data by enabling operations such as searches and analytics to be performed in the encrypted (cipher) domain as though it were happening in an unencrypted (plaintext) world. This allows data to be used securely across boundaries and silos, completely changing the paradigm of how and where organizations can leverage data to unlock value.

HE is a pillar of the increasingly recognized category known as Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), whose value has been highlighted by numerous global influencers, including the United Nations, Royal Society, CIPL, and the ICO. Among the technologies in the PETs family, HE stands out because it allows organisations to extract value from data while ensuring the highest levels of privacy and security.

Its potential to revolutionize data usage is transformative: businesses can extract value from data via searches, analytics, and AI/ML without decrypting the content of the operation or exposing their interests.

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