NEC Corporation along with eight other organisations, including Microsoft and France Telecom, has started a joint research on anonymous authentication technologies in an effort to provide privacy services for smartphones.
The other participants in the research, Lightweight privacY-enhancing cRyptography for mobIle Contactless Services (LYRICS), include Atos Worldline, EB LIFO / ENSI de Bourges, GREYC/ENSICAEN, IRISA / Université de Rennes, MoDyCo UMR 7114 and Oberthur Technologies.
Cryptography-based, anonymous authentication technology enables service providers to confirm access privileges while protecting the anonymity of users and terminals.
This technology requires a large amount of computation power like PCs, and therefore is a challenge for implementing on smartphones with limited processing power and battery strength.
The research programme aims to address these issues and is being funded by the French National Research Agency (l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche).
NEC Corporation Central Research Laboratories research fellow Kazue Sako said, "NEC’s advanced research on anonymous authentication technology predates its membership to the consortium, where it is the only Asia-based company contributing to these privacy protection efforts."
