Quantum Privacy

Abstract

Emerging technologies are changing the world as legal scholars and lawmakers try to keep up. Privacy is an area that been profoundly impacted by the creation and expansion of such technologies. We are now entering the Quantum Age, with quantum technologies promising to be one of the most impactful emerging technologies of the century. Quantum information science and technology (QIST) suggests quantum devices will either replace or supplement many of today’s technologies. As governments and the private sector race to achieve quantum supremacy, it is crucial for the legal community to understand and analyze how these technologies will impact societies and consumer experiences. This essay offers an overview of how QIST could impact privacy as we know it today. Among the many promises of QIST, this essay studies quantum computers, quantum internet, quantum encryptions, and quantum sensing to understand their potential interference with privacy. It introduces these emerging technologies to legal scholars and provides an overview of how they could potentially impact privacy. The present essay then offers a final novel analytical framework for future scholarly work on QIST privacy impacts and concludes that QIST could have primary and secondary effects on privacy that would both improve and undermine privacy. Understanding the challenges that privacy scholars will soon face and having a framework to work with is crucial for future research in this area.

Keywords: Quantum, privacy, quantum sensing, quantum information science, quantum internet, QIST, emerging technologies, encryption, QKD, quantum cryptography, post quantum cryptography,quantum key distribution