News release overview
New Technology for Redacting Digitally Signed Documents, Developed Jointly by Hitachi and AIST, Has Been Adopted as an ISO/IEC International Standard
Ensures both privacy and authenticity of publicly released documents, contributing to a safe data-utilization society
Figure 1. Example of redactable signature use with medical care data
(An example for pharmaceutical product development, with sanitization of personal and other information in the use of user data on existing products)
Tokyo, August 26, 2024 – Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501, "Hitachi") and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology ("AIST") today announced that their jointly developed technology for redacting digitally signed documents ("redactable signature" technology) has passed final approval by the Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), gaining adoption in international standard ISO/IEC 23264-2. The two newly standardized schemes provide means for ensuring the authenticity (absence of falsification) of digitally signed documents when they are made public in partially redacted form.
The redactable signature schemes use digital technology to realize partial disclosure of documents while enabling detection of unauthorized alteration or falsification. The two newly standardized schemes provide an efficient means for partial disclosure of public documents, while enabling the authenticity of data related to product development, in fields such as pharmaceuticals and finance, to be guaranteed, without loss of data use convenience, even when a document has undergone sanitization (anonymization) for privacy protection reasons. They are thus expected to contribute toward a safe data-utilization society.
