IPEN event on “Secure multi-party computation”

IPEN events bring together privacy experts and engineers from public authorities, industry, academia and civil society to discuss relevant challenges and developments for the engineering and technological implementation of data protection and privacy requirements into all phases of the development process.

The EDPS and the Goethe University Frankfurt would like to invite you to the Internet Privacy Engineering Network (IPEN) event on "Secure multi-party computation" that will take place in the Goethe-University Frankfurt on 21 October 2025.

Secure multi-party computation

In a data-driven world where collaboration among diverse parties is increasingly important, yet privacy remains paramount, secure multi-party computation (SMPC) is set to play a vital role as a privacy-enhancing technology (PET). By enabling multiple parties to jointly compute on private data without revealing it to one another, SMPC represents a transformative approach to secure data processing, particularly in sensitive domains such as finance, healthcare, national security, and AI development.

This conference brings together experts from academia, industry, and technology to examine SMPC’s growing role in solving some of the most pressing challenges in data privacy, digital sovereignty, and cross-border data collaboration.

Throughout the event, we will explore fundamental and practical questions, including:

• What is SMPC, and how does it compare to other privacy-preserving methods?
• What are the main protocols and computational models, and where do their limitations lie?
• Which real-world use cases are leading adoption - ranging from fraud detection to federated learning?
• How are European research initiatives and regulatory frameworks advancing the maturity of SMPC technologies?
• What are the practical obstacles to integrating SMPC into existing data workflows, and how can we overcome them?
• How do we balance privacy, performance, and cost, especially when applied to large-scale or latency-sensitive computations?
• What are the legal implications of SMPC under the GDPR, particularly in the context of cross-border data transfers and compliance?
• Are emerging standards and best practices sufficient to guide secure and interoperable implementations of SMPC?
• Finally, how might SMPC intersect with the development and deployment of artificial intelligence - either as a complementary safeguard or a technical challenge?

As we stand at the intersection of legal, technical, and ethical imperatives, SMPC offers a compelling framework for trust-by-design collaboration. This event will not only assess its current capabilities and limitations but also chart a path forward - toward scalable, legally sound, and performance-aware applications of this promising technology.

Join us - on-site or virtually - as we delve into the benefits and risks that Secure multi-party computation brings to the future of privacy.

Attendance at the event is free, but registration is required. The registration link will be published on this page shortly.

Agenda

The moderators and speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.