Homomorphic encryption primarily facilitates which of the following?

Homomorphic encryption primarily facilitates encrypted data processing, allowing computations to be performed on data while it remains encrypted. This means that you can add, multiply, or execute other operations on encrypted data without needing to decrypt it first. As a result, the data stays secure and private while still being useful for analysis and processing. This is particularly advantageous in cloud computing environments where sensitive data needs to be processed without exposing the raw, unencrypted information to the service provider.

The significance of this technique lies in its ability to enable secure outsourcing of computation. For instance, a company can send encrypted data to a cloud service for processing, and the service can perform calculations on that encrypted data, returning the encrypted results. The business can then decrypt the results without ever having given the service access to the plaintext data.

In contrast, other options do not align with the key functionality of homomorphic encryption. Immediate data retrieval pertains to accessing data promptly and does not involve encryption. Secure data transportation involves securing data during transmission, while file compression refers to reducing file sizes, neither of which are functions of homomorphic encryption.