Talk Q-PrEP – Privacy-Enhancing Cryptography In the Post-Quantum Era

Slides of the talk “Privacy-Enhancing Cryptography In the Post-Quantum Era” given by colleague Kristof Verslype presented at workshop “From Awareness to Action“ in The Hague (NL) on 16 September 2026, organized by Q-PrEP – Quantum-Proofing European Public Administration and hosted by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.

Standardization bodies are in the process of publishing new PQC standards, to complement and eventually replace the older, quantum vulnerable standards for key exchange and digital signatures. Together with the existing standards for symmetric cryptography and hash functions, they form the workhorses that protect confidentiality, integrity and authenticity in our digital infrastructure.

There also exists a wide range of privacy-enhancing cryptographic schemes which are incredibly powerful, yet less widely adopted. Multiple of these cryptographic schemes are quantum vulnerable and need replacement. However, practical post-quantum alternatives are not always readily available as they come with significant research challenges.