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arXiv:2501.05327 · Scientific Reports

Secure multi-party biometric verification using QKD assisted quantum oblivious transfer

Mariana F. Ramos, Michael Hentschel, Federico Valbusa, Costin Luchian, Martin Achleitner, Alessandro Trenti, Marie-Christine Roehsner, Mariano Lemus, Thomas Lorünser, Hannes Hübel

Published Jun 28, 2026• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present an experimentally feasible implementation of a secure multiparty computation application enabled by quantum oblivious transfer (QOT) on an entanglement-based physical layer. The QOT protocol uses polarization-encoded entangled states to share oblivious keys between two parties with quantum key distribution (QKD) providing authentication. Our system integrates the post-processing for QOT and QKD, both sharing a single physical layer, ensuring efficient key generation and authentication, respectively. Authentication involves hashing messages into a cryptographic context, verifying tags, and replenishing keys. This process uses a parallel QKD pipeline specifically for authentication, not for secure key generation. Oblivious keys are generated over a distance up to 25.8 km with a channel loss of 8.47 dB. In a back-to-back setup, a QOT rate of [Formula: see text] OTs/second is achieved, corresponding to 1 minute and 53 seconds per OT, primarily limited by the entanglement source. Using pre-distributed oblivious keys improved the rate to 0.11 OTs/second, or 9.1 seconds per OT. The considered QOT protocol is statistically correct, computationally secure for an honest receiver, and statistically secure for an honest sender, assuming a computationally hiding, statistically binding commitment. An experimentally feasible use case is demonstrated for privacy-preserving fingerprint matching against no-fly lists for border control. The fingerprint is secret-shared across two sites, ensuring security, while the matching is performed using the MASCOT protocol, supported by QOT. The application required 128 1-out-of-2 OTs, each with message length of 128 bits, with the highest security achieved in 20 minutes and 39 seconds. This work demonstrates the feasibility of QOT in secure quantum communication applications.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-026-58005-z

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We present an experimentally feasible implementation of a secure multiparty computation application enabled by quantum oblivious transfer (QOT) on an entanglement-based physical layer. The QOT protocol uses polarization-encoded entangled states to share oblivious keys between two parties with quantum key distribution (QKD) providing authentication. Our system integrates the post-processing for QOT and QKD, both sharing a single physical layer, ensuring efficient key generation and authentication, respectively. Authentication involves hashing messages into a cryptographic context, verifying tags, and replenishing keys. This process uses a parallel QKD pipeline specifically for authentication, not for secure key generation. Oblivious keys are generated over a distance up to 25.8 km with a channel loss of 8.47 dB. In a back-to-back setup, a QOT rate of [Formula: see text] OTs/second is achieved, corresponding to 1 minute and 53 seconds per OT, primarily limited by the entanglement source. Using pre-distributed oblivious keys improved the rate to 0.11 OTs/second, or 9.1 seconds per OT. The considered QOT protocol is statistically correct, computationally secure for an honest receiver, and statistically secure for an honest sender, assuming a computationally hiding, statistically binding commitment. An experimentally feasible use case is demonstrated for privacy-preserving fingerprint matching against no-fly lists for border control. The fingerprint is secret-shared across two sites, ensuring security, while the matching is performed using the MASCOT protocol, supported by QOT. The application required 128 1-out-of-2 OTs, each with message length of 128 bits, with the highest security achieved in 20 minutes and 39 seconds. This work demonstrates the feasibility of QOT in secure quantum communication applications.
Secure multiparty computation enables collaborative computations across multiple users while preserving individual privacy, which has a wide range of applications in finance, machine learning and healthcare. Secure multiparty computation can be realized using oblivious transfer as a primitive function. In this paper, we present an experimental implementation of a quantum-secure quantum oblivious transfer (QOT) protocol using an adapted quantum key distribution system combined with a bit commitment scheme, surpassing previous approaches only secure in the noisy storage model. We demonstrate the first practical application of the QOT protocol by solving the private set intersection, a prime example of secure multiparty computation, where two parties aim to find common elements in their datasets without revealing any other information. In our experiments, two banks can identify common suspicious accounts without disclosing any other data. This not only proves the experimental functionality of QOT, but also showcases its real-world commercial applications.
Quantum Cryptography (QC) is the emerging field of the current world and the potential player of the future. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is the matured discipline of QC and available in the market to establish a secret key between parties. In order to achieve in multiparty, basically quantum entanglement has been applied over a theoretical settings. However, due to practical limitation, entanglement based research has a feasible difficulty with current technology. The thesis principal goal is to propose a framework for quantum protocol layer for secure key management without entanglement over multiparty environment. In the secret key management, conference key or Multiparty QKD (MQKD) and joint-venture key or Public Shared Secret Quantum Key (PSSQK) protocols acted as a top layer and quantum user authentication scheme as a middle layer and the standard QKD operation as a bottom layer. The proposed secrete key management protocols are based on secret key between parties using QKD, modified error correction code and linear independent matrix. These protocols require only classical communication and yield higher secret key rate regardless of distance and noise. The security analysis using guessing entropy has applied and results shows only negligible amount information can be extracted during eavesdropping. The challenge-challenge response technique has been applied to proposed quantum user authentication scheme for verification of quantum user. This is a bidirectional authentication scheme and requires both quantum and classical channel to execute and has two modes of operation, i.e., initial and session authentication.Due to deterministic key distribution orientation, the efficiency of protocol reaches up to 100% in terms of reduction of photon wastage during communication. Further, this scheme is resilient to various quantum security attacks However, this scheme requires noiseless quantum channel in order to detect the insider and outsider attacks during authentication. A GUI based discrete event simulation has developed using OptiSystem™ in order to test the practical feasibility of proposed quantum cryptography protocol layer. The polarized based discrete variable QKD protocols have been designed and analyzed. Due to lack of real receiver setup, the results have showed lower quantum bit error rate. Further, we analyzed the impact of polarization structure of qubit due to noise, loss and distance over fiber optics and free space. A multiparty QKD setuphas been designed based on frequency division multiplexing (FDM) centralized quantum channel server. This approach reduces the requirement of total quantum channel from N*(N-1)/2 to N and each party requires one quantum channel to communicate with all other parties. The bit commitment protocol and message authentication in the layer has considered for the future research direction.
Nowadays the need of securely transmitting information has become crucial due to the increasing threat of cyberattacks. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) guarantees information-theoretic security in the transmission of secure keys between two trusted parties, leveraging the laws of quantum mechanics. In more general mistrustful communication scenarios, alternative protocols, often referred to as beyond-QKD protocols, are employed [1]. A notable example is oblivious transfer, a cryptographic primitive that supports secure multiparty computation (SMC).
Quantum cryptography is the field of cryptography that explores the quantum properties of matter. Generally, it aims to develop primitives beyond the reach of classical cryptography and to improve existing classical implementations. Although much of the work in this field covers quantum key distribution (QKD), there have been some crucial steps towards the understanding and development of quantum oblivious transfer (QOT). One can show the similarity between the application structure of both QKD and QOT primitives. Just as QKD protocols allow quantum-safe communication, QOT protocols allow quantum-safe computation. However, the conditions under which QOT is fully quantum-safe have been subject to intense scrutiny and study. In this review article, we survey the work developed around the concept of oblivious transfer within theoretical quantum cryptography. We focus on some proposed protocols and their security requirements. We review the impossibility results that daunt this primitive and discuss several quantum security models under which it is possible to prove QOT security.
Biometric authentication has become integral to digital identity systems, particularly in smart cities where it enables secure access to services across governance, transportation, and public infrastructure. Centralised architectures, though widely used, pose privacy and scalability challenges due to the aggregation of sensitive biometric data. Decentralised identity frameworks offer better data sovereignty and eliminate single points of failure but introduce new security concerns, particularly around mutual trust among distributed devices. In such environments, biometric sensors and verification agents must authenticate one another before sharing sensitive biometric data. Existing authentication schemes rely on classical public key infrastructure, which is increasingly susceptible to quantum attacks. This work addresses this gap by proposing a quantum-secure communication protocol for decentralised biometric systems, built upon an enhanced Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) system. The protocol incorporates quantum-resilient authentication at both the classical and quantum layers of QKD: post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is used to secure the classical channel, while authentication qubits verify the integrity of the quantum channel. Once trust is established, QKD generates symmetric keys for encrypting biometric data in transit. Qiskit-based simulations show a key generation rate of 15 bits/sec and 89% efficiency. This layered, quantum-resilient approach offers scalable, robust authentication for next-generation smart city infrastructures.
In cryptography, oblivious transfer (OT) is an important multi-party cryptographic primitive and protocol, that is suitable for many upper-layer applications, such as secure computation, remote coin-flipping, electrical contract signing and exchanging secrets simultaneously. However, some no-go theorems have been established, indicating that one-out-of-two quantum oblivious transfer (QOT) protocols with unconditional security are impossible. Fortunately, some one-out-of-two QOT protocols using the concept of Crépeau’s reduction have been demonstrated not to conform to Lo’s no-go theorem, but these protocols require more quantum resources to generate classical keys using all-or-nothing QOT to construct one-out-of-two QOT. This paper proposes a novel and efficient one-out-of-two QOT which uses quantum resources directly instead of wasting unnecessary resources to generate classical keys. The proposed protocol is not covered by Lo’s no-go theorem, and it is able to check the sender’s loyalty and avoid the attack from the receiver. Moreover, the entangled state of the proposed protocol is reusable, so it can provide more services for the participants when necessary. Compared with other QOT protocols, the proposed protocol is more secure, efficient, and flexible, which not only can prevent external and internal attacks, but also reduce the required resources and resource distribution time.