Experimental symmetric private information retrieval with measurement-device-independent quantum network
This addresses secure data retrieval for applications requiring both user query privacy and database security, though it is an incremental implementation of SPIR with quantum enhancements.
The researchers implemented a provably-secure symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR) system using a quantum-secure key-exchange network, successfully retrieving 582-byte fingerprint files from an 800-entry database.
Secure information retrieval is an essential task in today's highly digitised society. In some applications, it may be necessary that user query's privacy and database content's security are enforced. For these settings, symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR) could be employed, but its implementation is known to be demanding, requiring a private key-exchange network as the base layer. Here, we report for the first time a realisation of provably-secure SPIR supported by a quantum-secure key-exchange network. The SPIR scheme looks at biometric security, offering secure retrieval of 582-byte fingerprint files from a database with 800 entries. Our experimental results clearly demonstrate the feasibility of SPIR with quantum secure communications, thereby opening up new possibilities in secure distributed data storage and cloud computing over the future Quantum Internet.