The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has emerged as a transformative technology, enabling seamless communication among vehicles and infrastructure to improve road safety, traffic efficiency, and passenger comfort. However, the pervasive collection and exchange of data in IoV environments raise significant privacy concerns, as sensitive information about vehicle locations, driving patterns, and personal preferences may be exposed to unauthorized parties. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel approach that integrates homomorphic encryption with blockchain to ensure privacy-preserving communication in IoV networks. IoV networks rely on the continuous exchange of data among vehicles, roadside units, and centralized servers to support various applications, including traffic management, navigation, and emergency services. However, the centralized nature of traditional communication architectures poses inherent privacy risks, as sensitive data may be vulnerable to interception, tampering, or unauthorized access. Data integrity was ensured through blockchain storage, with an observed tamper-proof rate of 99.9%, effectively preventing unauthorized access or manipulation of exchanged messages. Despite the additional computational overhead introduced by homomorphic encryption and blockchain operations, our system maintained efficient communication capabilities, achieving an average latency of 50 milliseconds and a throughput of 1000 messages per second. Moreover, scalability was demonstrated as our framework seamlessly accommodated an increasing number of vehicles and communication nodes, with observed linear scalability up to 100,000 connected vehicles. Security analyses revealed robust protection against eavesdropping, data tampering, and replay attacks, with a detection rate exceeding 98%. Overall, our results underscore the viability and effectiveness of our integrated approach in providing privacy-preserving communication for IoV networks, paving the way for secure and resilient connected transportation systems. As IoV continues to evolve, our approach can contribute to the development of privacy-enhancing technologies that empower users to fully leverage the benefits of connected transportation while safeguarding their privacy rights.
Keywords
Internet of Vehicles (IOV), Homomorphic Encryption, Blockchain, Privacy Preservation, Data Integrity, Efficiency, Scalability, Security Analysis, Decentralized Communication, Privacy-Enhancing Technologies.
N. Wang et al., “A blockchain based privacy-preserving federated learning scheme for Internet of Vehicles,” Digital Communications and Networks, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 126–134, Feb. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.dcan.2022.05.020.
H. Karim and D. B. Rawat, “TollsOnly Please—Homomorphic Encryption for Toll Transponder Privacy in Internet of Vehicles,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 2627–2636, Feb. 2022, doi: 10.1109/jiot.2021.3056240.
R. Shrestha and S. Kim, “Integration of IoT with blockchain and homomorphic encryption: Challenging issues and opportunities,” Role of Blockchain Technology in IoT Applications, pp. 293–331, 2019, doi: 10.1016/bs.adcom.2019.06.002.
C. Xu, H. Wu, H. Liu, W. Gu, Y. Li, and D. Cao, “Blockchain-Oriented Privacy Protection of Sensitive Data in the Internet of Vehicles,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 1057–1067, Feb. 2023, doi: 10.1109/tiv.2022.3164657.
H. Chai, S. Leng, J. He, K. Zhang, and B. Cheng, “CyberChain: Cybertwin Empowered Blockchain for Lightweight and Privacy-Preserving Authentication in Internet of Vehicles,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 71, no. 5, pp. 4620–4631, May 2022, doi: 10.1109/tvt.2021.3132961.
K. Kaltakis, P. Polyzi, G. Drosatos, and K. Rantos, “Privacy-Preserving Solutions in Blockchain-Enabled Internet of Vehicles,” Applied Sciences, vol. 11, no. 21, p. 9792, Oct. 2021, doi: 10.3390/app11219792.
G. Xu, J. Zhang, U. G. O. Cliff, and C. Ma, “An efficient blockchain‐based privacy‐preserving scheme with attribute and homomorphic encryption,” International Journal of Intelligent Systems, vol. 37, no. 12, pp. 10715–10750, Oct. 2022, doi: 10.1002/int.22946.
Z. Ma, J. Wang, K. Gai, P. Duan, Y. Zhang, and S. Luo, “Fully homomorphic encryption-based privacy-preserving scheme for cross edge blockchain network,” Journal of Systems Architecture, vol. 134, p. 102782, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.sysarc.2022.102782.
F. Loukil, C. Ghedira-Guegan, K. Boukadi, and A.-N. Benharkat, “Privacy-Preserving IoT Data Aggregation Based on Blockchain and Homomorphic Encryption,” Sensors, vol. 21, no. 7, p. 2452, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.3390/s21072452.
Y. Liu et al., “VRepChain: A Decentralized and Privacy-Preserving Reputation System for Social Internet of Vehicles Based on Blockchain,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 71, no. 12, pp. 13242–13253, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.1109/tvt.2022.3198004.
R. Yang, T. Zhao, F. R. Yu, M. Li, D. Zhang, and X. Zhao, “Blockchain-Based Federated Learning With Enhanced Privacy and Security Using Homomorphic Encryption and Reputation,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 11, no. 12, pp. 21674–21688, Jun. 2024, doi: 10.1109/jiot.2024.3379395.
J. Zhang, F. Yang, Z. Ma, Z. Wang, X. Liu, and J. Ma, “A Decentralized Location Privacy-Preserving Spatial Crowdsourcing for Internet of Vehicles,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 2299–2313, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.1109/tits.2020.3010288.
A. Ali, B. A. S. Al-rimy, F. S. Alsubaei, A. A. Almazroi, and A. A. Almazroi, “HealthLock: Blockchain-Based Privacy Preservation Using Homomorphic Encryption in Internet of Things Healthcare Applications,” Sensors, vol. 23, no. 15, p. 6762, Jul. 2023, doi: 10.3390/s23156762.
Z. Ma, L. Wang, and W. Zhao, “Blockchain-Driven Trusted Data Sharing With Privacy Protection in IoT Sensor Network,” IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 21, no. 22, pp. 25472–25479, Nov. 2021, doi: 10.1109/jsen.2020.3046752.
T. A. Butt, R. Iqbal, K. Salah, M. Aloqaily, and Y. Jararweh, “Privacy Management in Social Internet of Vehicles: Review, Challenges and Blockchain Based Solutions,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 79694–79713, 2019, doi: 10.1109/access.2019.2922236.
X. Wang, H. Zhu, Z. Ning, L. Guo, and Y. Zhang, “Blockchain Intelligence for Internet of Vehicles: Challenges and Solutions,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 2325–2355, 2023, doi: 10.1109/comst.2023.3305312.
J. Zhang, H. Fang, H. Zhong, J. Cui, and D. He, “Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving Traffic Route Management Scheme for Fog-Based Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 2854–2868, Sep. 2023, doi: 10.1109/tnsm.2023.3238307.
Keertikumar M., Shubham M., and R. M. Banakar, “Evolution of IoT in smart vehicles: An overview,” 2015 International Conference on Green Computing and Internet of Things (ICGCIoT), pp. 804–809, Oct. 2015, doi: 10.1109/icgciot.2015.7380573.
Y. U. Devi and M. S. S. Rukmini, “IoT in connected vehicles: Challenges and issues — A review,” 2016 International Conference on Signal Processing, Communication, Power and Embedded System (SCOPES), pp. 1864–1867, Oct. 2016, doi: 10.1109/scopes.2016.7955769.
X. Krasniqi and E. Hajrizi, “Use of IoT Technology to Drive the Automotive Industry from Connected to Full Autonomous Vehicles,” IFAC-PapersOnLine, vol. 49, no. 29, pp. 269–274, 2016, doi: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.11.078.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank to the reviewers for nice comments on the manuscript.
Funding
No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Availability of data and materials
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
Author information
Contributions
All authors have equal contribution in the paper and all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Kyung-A Choi
National Institute of Medical Welfare, Kangnam University, Gangnam-ro, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivs is a more restrictive license. It allows you to redistribute the material commercially or non-commercially but the user cannot make any changes whatsoever to the original, i.e. no derivatives of the original work. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Cite this article
Kyung-A Choi, “Integrating Homomorphic Encryption with Blockchain for Privacy-Preserving Communication in the Internet of Vehicles”, Journal of Machine and Computing. doi: 10.53759/7669/jmc202505025.
