Project for securing privacy in data processing received highest mark from European Commission

The research project Usable and Efficient Secure Multi-party Computation led by Cybernetica AS received the highest possible mark from the European Commission in the final assessment. Recommendations by researchers of the University of Tartu Institute of Social Sciences helped the project reach the successful implementation of a secure computation system.

According to an expert group, the strength of the research project, which was funded from the 7^th Framework Programme’s measure for future and emerging technologies, is the successful integration of theory, applications and social aspects.

The project developed the statistics software Rmind which operates on the basis of secure multi-party computation technology and created more cost-effective solutions which would help the end users who were interviewed in the course of the project in solving their security problems.

“The project is unique because Estonian enterprises have not received funding before from the European Commission’s FET Open measure for future technologies and the highest mark from the experts of the commission recognises the research activity of Cybernetica AS as world class,” said Research Director of Cybernetica AS Peeter Laud.

“The task of social scientists in the project was to identify the problems in society which need solutions for which the technology developed by cryptographs is best suitable,” said University of Tartu’s Professor of Media Studies Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt.

“The successful cooperation of the team was based on the mutual wish to understand each other’s methods and strengths. University of Tartu social scientists offered the developers of Cybernetica’s safe computation system Sharemind valuable recommendations which led to the successful implementation of the system,” said Cybernetica’s researcher Liina Kamm.

The project Usable and Efficient Secure Multi-party Computation” ran from 2012 to 2015 and received one million euros from the European Commission. The results of the project were published by IOS Press publishing house in the open access book “Applications of secure multiparty computation”.

In August 2015, Cybernetica AS and the University of Tartu in cooperation with European Parliament member Marju Lauristin introduced the project outcome to the European Parliament’s working group on data protection regulation.

Other project participants were the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Swedish KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.