Blockchain-based Proof of Location

Abstract: Location-Based Services (LBSs) build upon geographic information to provide users with location-dependent functionalities. In such a context, it is particularly important that geographic locations claimed by users are trustworthy. Centralized verification approaches proposed in the last few years are not satisfactory, as they entail a high risk to the privacy of users. In this paper, we present and evaluate a novel decentralized, infrastructure-independent proof-of-location scheme based on blockchain technology. Our scheme guarantees both location trustworthiness and user privacy preservation.