Homomorphic encryption is a phrase that might never make it to everybody’s lips, but the technology will become part of what we do each day, thanks to Apple, Swift and the need for artificial intelligence (AI) in the cloud. It’s a privacy-protecting technology that lets you secure data in the cloud, work on that data using cloud services, and do all that without anyone other than you knowing what your data is.
Why does this matter?
Think about it this way. When we store data in the cloud, we already use technology to lock that data down so no one, including the people running the servers, can access it. It’s like putting your data in a safety deposit box only you can open.
But what we do with cloud data is changing rapidly as a multitude of services appear that let you use powerful AI systems to work with it. To do so, the servers must access your information — they need to open that safety deposit box to work with the information it contains, which makes your data less secure.
