The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and privacy-preserving systems

Abstract

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is changing the contemporary mobility, as it allows real-time communication between vehicles, infrastructure, and cloud services. Nevertheless, such growing connectivity brings on serious privacy, regulatory, and trust issues especially because sensitive behavioral and location information is exposed. The current IoV-security systems tend to be based on identity-based checks, or centralized trust authorities, which can lead to infringement of user privacy and cause surveillance and profiling threats. The paper is inspired by privacy-preserving architectures in the Metaverse to suggest a decentralized trust system of IoV systems on the basis of zero-knowledge proofs, namely zk-SNARKs. The suggested solution allows vehicles to cryptographically verify that they meet regulatory or operational regulations- i.e. valid insurance, safety test, or emissions- without revealing personal identifiers or raw information. The framework enables building scalable, low-latency and audible trusts and following data minimization principles through combining zk-SNARK verification and Layer 2 blockchain solutions.