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.
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.
Biometric authentication has become integral to digital identity systems, particularly in smart cities where it en-ables secure access to services across governance, trans-portation, and public infrastructure. Centralised archi-tectures, though widely used, pose privacy and scalabil-ity challenges due to the aggregation of sensitive biomet-ric data. Decentralised identity frameworks offer better data sovereignty and eliminate single points of failure but introduce new security concerns, particularly around mu-tual trust among distributed devices. In such environments, biometric sensors and verification agents must authenticate one another before sharing sensitive biometric data. Ex-isting authentication schemes rely on classical public key infrastructure, which is increasingly susceptible to quan-tum attacks. This work addresses this gap by propos-ing a quantum-secure communication protocol for decen-tralised biometric systems, built upon an enhanced Quan-tum Key Distribution (QKD) system. The protocol incorpo-rates quantum-resilient authentication at both the classical and quantum layers of QKD: post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is used to secure the classical channel, while authen-tication qubits verify the integrity of the quantum channel. Once trust is established, QKD generates symmetric keys for encrypting biometric data in transit. Qiskit-based sim-ulations 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.
The development of national digital identity systems has sped up, leading to an increasing demand for biometric authentication system, which needs to be secure and able to serve all users and be adapted to future needs. The classical biometric systems rely on fingerprints, iris scans and facial recognition technology, which poses significant accessibility challenges to individuals with physical disabilities, visual impairments and atypical biometric characteristics such as those born without fingers or having more fingers. The existing protocols are vulnerable to the new quantum attacks that threaten classical cryptographic protocols. This work presents the Quantum-Resilient Inclusive Biometric Framework, which allows the use of various biometrics and resilient to quantum threats. The framework supports matching via a quantum state encoding method which encodes multiple biometric features under a Grover-based search technique that amplifies the amplitudes. We present a smart identity card system which can be proved to be post-quantum secure by combining lattice-based cryptography and quantum-safe digital signatures. The architecture is such that offering access to the chip-enabled authentication and Braille-assisted verification system doesn't compromise the security of the cryptographic protections. Security is evaluated by calculating quantum threat models with Shor-type, Grover-type attacks as potential adversary techniques. The proposed model offers better scalability for large-scale biometric search, as well as it offers better accessibility to the disabled people and better privacy and security in facing cyber threats that will be evolved by quantum technologies in the future. The work builds a secure and affordable national identity infrastructure through design of national identity systems based on quantum computing principles for the inclusive biometric systems.
Abstract Quantum key distribution (QKD) can provide information theoretically secure key exchange even in the era of quantum computers. However, QKD requires the classical channel to be authenticated, the current method for which is pre-sharing symmetric keys. For a QKD network of n users, this method requires Cn2=n(n−1)/2 C n 2 = n ( n − 1 ) / 2 pairs of symmetric keys to realize pairwise interconnection. In contrast, with the help of a mature public key infrastructure (PKI) and post-quantum cryptography (PQC) with quantum-resistant security, each user only needs to apply for one digital certificate from a certificate authority (CA) to achieve efficient and secure authentication for QKD. We need to assume only the short-term security of the PQC algorithm to achieve long-term security of the distributed keys. Here, we experimentally verified the feasibility, efficiency, and stability of the PQC algorithm in QKD authentication, and demonstrated the advantages when new users join the QKD network. Using the PQC public-key infrastructure, the nodes need to mutually trust only the CA to authenticate each other. QKD combined with PQC authentication will greatly promote and extend the application prospects of quantum-safe communication.
Healthcare systems are rapidly becoming digital, which has increased the demand for safe, dependable, and privacy-preserving authentication methods. Iris biometrics have emerged as a key component for identity verification in delicate settings due to their high accuracy and stability. However, protecting privacy and data security is a difficulty for conventional biometric systems, particularly in light of new quantum risks. For advanced healthcare security, this study suggests a revolutionary quantum-enhanced, privacy-preserving iris biometrics system. Through the integration of quantum computing technologies, the framework makes use of quantum-accelerated algorithms like Grover's algorithm for efficient template matching and quantum-safe cryptography like Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). Homomorphic encryption and federated learning are two further ways to improve privacy preservation while guaranteeing adherence to HIPAA and other healthcare data protection laws. In comparison to conventional techniques, the suggested system performs better in terms of accuracy, security, and computational efficiency when tested on benchmark iris datasets. By filling important gaps in safe and privacy-focused identity management, this research creates a novel method at the nexus of quantum computing, biometrics, and healthcare.
The exponential development of quantum computing represents a serious threat to the existence of the modern cybersecurity infrastructure. Fault-tolerant large-scale quantum computing will be realized roughly five to ten years hence, and will make most of the current standards for asymmetric cryptography-such as RSA and ECC-deviant. While mitigations, such as Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) offer possible countermeasures, both are hampered by vulnerabilities of their own. Respectively, PQC relies on unproven mathematical hardness assumptions that are always subject to future algorithmic innovations, while QKD is limited by the physical requirements of a dedicated quantum channel.This paper presents a new hybrid protocol which aims to solve these limitations by combining PQC and QKD into a unified design. The proposed scheme will hybridize the secure key resulting from the BB84-based QKD protocol with a second secret derived by using a lattice-based PQC key exchange, using a strong hybrid key derivation function. It deals with a point-to-point transport-layer model, which is in line with the technological limitations of QKD models at present. The implementation would need trusted nodes or quantum repeaters, which are beyond the reach of this implementation. The system is implemented on a dual-channel platform: the quantum channel is used for key distribution and the classical channel is used for PQC negotiation and secure data transmission, all classical communication is authenticated by HMAC. The resulting architecture is a future-proof quantum-safe communication system that will protect government sensitive data, as well as financial and e-commerce enterprises, thus ensuring the transition to a quantum resistant digital society in the face of a catastrophic event that would have a massive financial and societal impact.
The next generation of Quantum Internet of Things (QIoT) has the potential to revolutionize various sectors, including smart homes, health-care, and smart cities, by enabling more sophisticated and interconnected systems. These applications incorporate advanced features, such as autonomous decision-making based on Quantum Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (QAI/ML) and context-aware functionality. The security of the data in these applications relies on traditional cryptographic techniques, which, however, face a growing threat due to the significant advancements in quantum computing, especially with the Shor's algorithm. This algorithm poses a substantial risk of breaking conventional cryptographic methods within a feasible timeframe. To address these emerging security challenges in the quantum realm, we propose a Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) based on the BB84 protocol. This approach aims to provide robust authentication using certificates through a classical channel and secure quantum key exchange via a quantum channel in a public environment. The proposed QKD scheme is implemented using a client-server model in Python and Qiskit, demonstrating its practicality in real-world applications. The obtained results showcase the successful establishment of a secure session key between IoT smart (sensor) devices and gateway nodes, effectively mitigating potential threats such as eavesdropping.