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DESILO Researchers Attend ISO Standardization Meeting on Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) as FHE Standards Move Toward Final Draft (FDIS) Stage

PR TeamPR Team · DESILO
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Damien Ligier and Ilaria Chillotti take part in the September 2026 meeting of the ISO working group on cryptography and security mechanisms, held at KU Leuven, Belgium, September 8–11

The FHE parts of ISO/IEC 28033 progress toward the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage, with publication expected in 2027

A follow-up to our February overview of FHE standardization at ISO and NIST

DESILO researchers Dr. Damien Ligier and Dr. Ilaria Chillotti attended the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/WG 2 meeting held at KU Leuven in Leuven, Belgium, from September 8 to 11, 2026. The meeting brought together cryptography experts from national delegations around the world to advance the working group's portfolio of standards, including the ISO/IEC 28033 series on Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE).

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/WG 2 meeting participants at KU Leuven

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/WG 2 meeting, KU Leuven, September 2026

WG 2, the working group on Cryptography and Security Mechanisms, is one of five working groups under ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27, the subcommittee responsible for information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection. It meets every six months, and each meeting is where drafts move from one formal stage of the ISO process to the next. Both DESILO researchers have been involved in the ISO effort on FHE for several years — Dr. Chillotti, the inventor of TFHE, since its early stages in 2020.

From DIS to FDIS

The ISO/IEC 28033 series, which ISO began considering in 2020, standardizes the three families of lattice-based FHE schemes in practical use today, alongside a general part covering core concepts and security models:

  • ISO/IEC 28033-1 — Part 1: General
  • ISO/IEC 28033-2 — Part 2: Mechanisms for exact arithmetic on modular integers (BGV/BFV)
  • ISO/IEC 28033-3 — Part 3: Mechanisms for arithmetic on approximate numbers (CKKS)
  • ISO/IEC 28033-4 — Part 4: Mechanisms for arithmetic based on look-up table evaluation (DM/CGGI, also known as FHEW/TFHE)

When we last reported on the series in February, all four parts were at the Draft International Standard (DIS) stage. Parts 3 and 4 have advanced to the FDIS stage, and the DIS ballot for Parts 1 and 2 has closed, with both parts now heading to FDIS. Part 5, on scheme switching between the three families, remains at an earlier stage of development.

What FDIS means

Reaching FDIS locks the technical content of a standard: no further changes are made to the substance of the text. Each part is then circulated to participating national bodies for a final eight-week vote, during which only editorial corrections can be raised; any remaining technical objection is recorded for a future revision rather than addressed in the current text. Approval requires a two-thirds majority of the committee's participating members in favor and no more than one quarter of the total votes against. Once approved, the document goes through final editing and proof-checking at ISO's central secretariat and is published as an International Standard, typically within weeks to a few months after the vote closes.

The development timeline for the four parts now includes a twelve-month extension, which leaves room to complete the remaining steps. If the ballots proceed as expected, the four FHE parts of ISO/IEC 28033 are on track for publication in 2027.

What comes next

Publication will give implementers, regulators and enterprise adopters a common international reference for FHE — agreed definitions, security models, parameter guidance and data formats across the main scheme families. WG 2 meets again in roughly six months, and work continues in parallel on Part 5 and on further extensions to the series.

DESILO will continue to take part in the ISO process on FHE and in related work at NIST, and to report on the progress of ISO/IEC 28033 as the series moves toward publication.

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