IBM · Security · Filed May 6, 2025 · USPTO published Nov 12, 2026 · This week's release

IBM Files Patent for Payment Audits That Check One Person Without Exposing Everyone

Privacy and oversight usually pull in opposite directions. IBM's patent application tries to hand an auditor one person's payment history for one time window, and nothing else.

By Patentlyze Team · Updated Nov 12, 2026 · 3 min read

A system connects buyers and sellers so officials can inspect one person's money transfers without seeing anyone else's activity. Drawing from patent filing US 2026/0359900 A1. — A system connects buyers and sellers so officials can inspect one person's money transfers without seeing anyone else's activity.All 5 drawings ↓

Publication number: US 2026/0359900 A1(US20260359900A1)
Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
Filed · Published: May 6, 2025 · Nov 12, 2026
Inventors: Elina Van Kempen, Rebekah Mercer, Angelo De Caro, Elli Androulaki, Kaoutar El Khiyaoui
Status when we published: Examiner raised objections; the company can respond
Document: 20 claims
US classification: 705/30
Examiner: OBEID, FAHD A (Art Unit 3627)

What IBM's one-person payment audit does

A bank auditor gets a tip that one customer may be moving money improperly. In a payment system built to protect privacy, the auditor faces a bad choice: comb through every record ever made, or get a standing pass to watch that customer indefinitely.

IBM's patent application describes a middle path. Each time you make a payment, your device attaches a hidden tag made from a secret key that changes with each time period. Nobody looking at the public record can tell whose tag it is.

If an audit is approved, the auditor gets only the key for that person and that time period. From it, the auditor works out the possible tags and pulls up just those payments. Everyone else's activity stays hidden, and the access does not carry over to later periods.

From the filing · CLAIM 1

… generating a zero-knowledge proof to demonstrate validity of the unique tag without revealing user identity; …

Translation: It creates a cryptographic proof that the payment is valid without exposing who made it.

How the time-limited tags get rebuilt

The filing describes a tagging scheme for anonymous payment systems, where transactions are recorded on a shared, tamper-resistant record book (a ledger) without showing who made them.

Here is the sequence the claims lay out:

At the start of each time period (the filing calls it an epoch), your device derives a fresh tag generation key from a long-term secret and the period's number.
For each payment, it mixes in a random number to create a unique tag and attaches it.
It also attaches a zero-knowledge proof (a math check that shows the tag is valid without revealing who you are).
The ledger rejects any tag it has seen before, and records the payment only if the proof checks out.

The number of payments per person per period is capped at a public maximum. That cap is what makes audits quick: an auditor never stores anything in advance. When an audit is approved, the auditor asks a go-between (an intermediary, which the filing says could be a bank, broker or government agency) for that person's key for that period, plus a proof it belongs to the right person. The auditor then computes every possible tag, at most the cap's worth, and looks each one up on the ledger.

The filing also covers payments with a sender and a recipient, tagging both sides. An intermediary can create the recipient's tag if the recipient is offline.

From the filing · THE ABSTRACT

The ledger verifies that the unique tag does not match any previous transaction tags.

Translation: The system checks that the payment code has never been used before to stop fraud.

Why private payments still need auditors

If digital payments become more private, the people running them still have to answer to regulators. This design tries to give them an answer that does not strip you of privacy. Your payments stay unlinkable to you unless an audit is approved for you, and an approval covers one time period instead of forever. The filing uses digital central bank currency as one example of where this could apply.

The examiner's first review rejected the claims as filed, which is a routine early step that usually leads to amendments. Nothing here says IBM has a product built on this. It reads as groundwork for systems where privacy and compliance both have to hold.

IBM's 459th filing in our IBM coverage since May follows patents like the VR danger-awareness headset and one-shot photo inspection.

Editorial take

Every system that promises private payments runs into the same awkward question: what happens when someone needs to investigate a customer? Regulators and banks need an answer, and a system without one is hard to sell to them. That makes this a sizable problem for anyone building private digital money.

The approach fits the problem well. A cap on payments per time period keeps the auditor's workload small, and the expiring key keeps a single investigation from turning into lifelong surveillance. Those are the two complaints the filing raises about older methods.

The limit is the audience. Most people will never touch a system like this directly, so the payoff depends on whether banks or governments adopt private digital payments at all. If they do, this is sensible plumbing. If they do not, it is a tidy answer to a question few are asking yet.

Source: US 2026/0359900 A1 at the USPTO (PDF). Full patent text and figures are in the official publication.

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The drawings · 5 sheets

5 drawing sheets from US 2026/0359900 A1 · click any drawing to enlarge

Steps for creating private payments and auditing a specific user, drawing sheet 1 from US 2026/0359900 A1 — Sheet 1 Steps for creating private payments and auditing a specific user

Network connections linking transacting users, intermediaries, and auditors, drawing sheet 2 from US 2026/0359900 A1 — Sheet 2 Network connections linking transacting users, intermediaries, and auditors

Tracking incoming and outgoing funds between separate transactions, drawing sheet 3 from US 2026/0359900 A1 — Sheet 3 Tracking incoming and outgoing funds between separate transactions

Hardware and cloud systems that run the private auditing software, drawing sheet 4 from US 2026/0359900 A1 — Sheet 4 Hardware and cloud systems that run the private auditing software

Detailed steps for tagging and verifying individual digital coin transfers, drawing sheet 5 from US 2026/0359900 A1 — Sheet 5 Detailed steps for tagging and verifying individual digital coin transfers

The drawings · 5 sheets

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