Enhancing Electric Vehicle Security and Privacy through Decentralized Identity Management

Abstract

In the next decade, electric vehicles (EVs) are expected to contribute to reducing climate change and transforming road mobility significantly. However, the security and privacy of EV charging systems present considerable challenges that need to be addressed. This paper introduces a novel approach by integrating blockchain-based self-sovereign identity (SSI) to enhance the security and privacy of EV charging systems. By leveraging decentralized and immutable nature of blockchain, the proposed SSI framework can ensure secure and private data exchanges between EVs, charging stations, and backend systems. This three-way integration addresses the vulnerabilities identified in existing EV charging methods, such as conductive, inductive, and battery swapping, and complies with cybersecurity regulations like UNECE R155. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis, practical case study, and evaluation of the security and privacy enhancements achieved through the proposed SSI framework, offering valuable insights for industry professionals and researchers. We have conducted extensive end-to-end testing to evaluate the performance of our blockchain-based SSI framework in the EV charging ecosystem, focusing on identity verification, credential management and service orchestration. The results show that the system enables fast wallet creation, efficient metadata retrieval and low-latency service deployment, ensuring seamless identity management and service orchestration.