Functional Encryption

Cryptography has found multiples applications that go well beyond traditional encryption. One prominent line of work introduced encryption schemes with advanced functionalities, such as the capability to compute a selective function on the encrypted data or enforce fine-grained access control. Much like homomorphic encryption, but featuring different and complementary properties, such encryption schemes fall under the umbrella notion of Functional Encryption.

We contribute to building Functional Encryption from the ground up, starting with simple and practical functionalities, such as private aggregation (i.e. computing a weighted sum on the encrypted plaintexts), and exploring more sophisticated computations that could serve to perform privacy-preserving machine learning. A particular emphasis is given to decentralized schemes, where the required trust is minimal, and users can join the system dynamically.