Zero-Knowledge Proofs Strengthen BIM Handoffs and Liability Defenses

Liability in construction often crystallizes when one team turns a digital model over to the next. Yet even well-run projects hand off Building Information Models that are missing critical asset, performance, or commissioning data. A 2023 study by Tsay et al., which includes researchers from the University of British Columbia, found that information quality issues persist “even in projects with stringent information requirements and modeling standards established and enforced by the owner”.

These gaps heighten professional liability risks associated with digital models because decisions, approvals, and certifications may depend on information that is incomplete or difficult to verify after the fact. Zero-knowledge proofs, which are succinct cryptographic statements that reveal nothing beyond their own validity, offer an alternative to full disclosure of underlying design or analysis files.

By letting teams prove that a model satisfied a requirement on a specific date, zero-knowledge proofs can create a tamper-evident evidentiary chain without requiring complete exposure of intellectual property. This approach appears in academic and preliminary studies, and it aligns with the way standard contracts and information management standards define staged information obligations.

Persistent Gaps at Critical Handoffs

Key handoff stages such as design approvals, partial occupancy, substantial completion, and final commissioning mark formal shifts in risk. Yet models delivered at handover can still fail basic tests of completeness, accuracy, and consistency for facilities management use. The same research by Tsay et al. notes that COBie is widely used as an exchange format for asset data, but that “there are still several challenges that prevent COBie from solving the interoperability issue,” and that conventional BIM practices do not inherently capture the asset information needed for operations and maintenance.

The study describes concrete compliance failures that surface late: assets represented as annotations instead of modeled objects, missing or incomplete asset information not associated with the relevant virtual objects, and inconsistencies in how objects are classified and described. In practice, this means facility teams may receive models and COBie extracts that still require additional validation and rework before they can be treated as a reliable source of truth, even when contractual information requirements reference standards like ISO 19650.

Shared digital models also raise professional liability risks because multiple parties contribute to and rely on the same files over time. Attorney Steven J. O’Neill argues that BIM’s shared environment can blur traditional boundaries of responsibility, complicating questions about who owns the risk when model-based decisions go wrong.

How Zero-Knowledge Proofs Work

A zero-knowledge proof lets one party convince another that a statement is true without revealing the underlying evidence. In this setting, the prover shows that they know data that satisfies a given rule, while the verifier only learns that the rule has been met, not the data itself.

Succinct, non-interactive proofs such as zk-SNARKs compress this guarantee into a small proof that is quick to verify. Research by Kong, Zhao and Xue proposes a preliminary design for combining zero-knowledge proofs with blockchain to support BIM identity authentication in construction management.

Three core properties make these techniques relevant for risk management: completeness means valid statements verify correctly, soundness means false statements cannot pass with any significant probability, and zero-knowledge means no extra data leaks beyond the truth of the statement. When proofs and related commitments are stored on a public or permissioned ledger, the result is a time-stamped, append-only record that can be referenced in legal or contractual proceedings.

Aligning Proofs With Contract Requirements

Standards such as ISO 19650 define information management frameworks and staged information requirements that owners adapt and enforce, as discussed in Tsay et al. (2023). Zero-knowledge proofs could allow parties to show that required attributes, classifications, or performance values were present on a specified date, even if the underlying geometry or calculation scripts remain confidential.

In a structural steel package, for example, the engineer of record could record a cryptographic hash of a particular IFC file and then publish a proof that a specified capacity check passes for all relevant members under an agreed rule set. The verifier would learn that the rule is satisfied without seeing individual section sizes, connection details, or proprietary calculation scripts.

Because the commitment is recorded on a tamper-evident ledger, parties cannot alter a model after the fact without breaking the link to the earlier commitment. This property reduces disputes about whether information was added, removed, or edited after a milestone and supports a clearer distinction between design-stage knowledge and issues that emerge later in the asset life cycle.

Selective Disclosure Across Four Handoff Stages

During design approval, architects could commit the hash of the federated model and provide a proof that fire stair widths meet code requirements throughout the building. The proof could satisfy a building official or third party reviewer while allowing the design team to keep detailed parametric families and proprietary rule sets private.

At partial occupancy, a contractor seeking an early move-in or temporary certificate of occupancy might publish a proof that ventilation rates for occupied floors match the design intent within an agreed tolerance. Mechanical subcontractors would retain their calibrated simulation files and configuration scripts, but the owner would receive cryptographic evidence that indoor air performance targets were met on the reported date.

At substantial completion, before the release of retention, the general contractor could prove that all assets in a COBie sheet link to model elements with valid location coordinates. That step would reduce later arguments over missing tag numbers or unlocatable assets while keeping internal quality control logs and proprietary checking tools out of the shared record.

During final commissioning, facility management teams often request detailed test and balance reports for each air handling unit and related systems. A zero-knowledge proof could confirm that measured airflows or temperatures stayed within specified tolerances during witnessed tests, with raw sensor logs and high frequency data retained under confidentiality agreements.

In each of these cases, the act of proving also time stamps the underlying data state. If the model or measurement data changes after the commitment, a new hash will not match the earlier proof, which makes any undocumented edits or late adjustments detectable.

Early Research Shows Promise

Early work in this area focuses on specific construction management tasks that benefit from privacy and integrity guarantees rather than full BIM handover. One example is a Layer 2 blockchain system for anonymous near miss reporting described by Nyato and colleagues in Automation in Construction (2024). The authors report a proof-of-concept that integrates zero-knowledge proofs with a Layer-2 chain, aiming to preserve anonymity while maintaining integrity and traceability of reports, with an emphasized goal of reducing submission costs.

In that paper’s conclusion, the authors write: “By enhancing privacy, security, and data integrity through the proposed modules, this system not only aims to address and mitigate the fear of retribution”. The design uses zero-knowledge techniques so that reporters can prove eligibility and submission validity without revealing their identities, while still maintaining a verifiable safety record.

Separately, Kong and co-authors propose a zero-knowledge-based identity check for adaptive blockchain BIM identity authentication. Their protocol links BIM records to on-chain identifiers in a way that allows verification of user rights without exposing more information about the model or the user than necessary.

Although neither prototype addresses complete model handoff workflows, both studies present early designs for using zero-knowledge proofs in construction management. Combined with Layer 2 blockchain systems, these applications suggest that privacy-preserving proofs can support safety reporting, identity management, and potentially other tasks that rely on trustworthy but selective disclosure.

Barriers to Scale and Next Steps

Standardization remains a central obstacle to using zero-knowledge proofs at scale in BIM handoffs. Proof circuits and templates would need to map directly to owner-defined information delivery rules and common information requirements so that different projects do not define incompatible checks for similar deliverables.

Today, generating zk-SNARKs or similar proofs for complex models and rich rule sets can still be computationally intensive. Advances in proof systems and hardware are reducing this overhead, but design and construction teams would need workflows that integrate proof generation into existing model checking and coordination tools rather than requiring separate manual steps.

Legal treatment of blockchain-based records also varies by jurisdiction, which affects how parties might rely on on-chain commitments and proofs in disputes. Contracts may need explicit clauses that describe how such records will be treated as evidence, how long they will be retained, and how they interact with more traditional deliverables like signed reports and exported models.

Industry consortia and standards bodies could respond by developing libraries of proof templates for common handoff checks, such as verifying completeness of asset registers, confirming performance margins for key systems, or checking code-related constraints. These templates could draw on findings from existing pilots in near-miss reporting and BIM identity authentication so that future implementations build on tested building blocks.

A Tighter Evidentiary Chain

BIM workflows must balance transparency against protection of proprietary methods, internal processes, and commercially sensitive model content. Zero-knowledge proofs do not remove this tension, but they offer a technical way to separate proof of compliance with a defined rule from disclosure of detailed inputs.

If early pilots evolve into contract language and standardized proof templates, owners could receive verifiable evidence at agreed milestones while designers and contractors retain control over their underlying tools and data. That shift would move BIM handoffs toward a sequence of cryptographic commitments that can be checked for integrity, compared against information requirements, and referenced in future disputes without requiring parties to share more information than is necessary at each stage.

Sources

• Tsay, G.S.; Staub-French, S.; Poirier, E.; Zadeh, P.; Pottinger, R. "BIM for FM: understanding information quality issues in terms of compliance with owner’s Building Information Modeling Requirements." Frontiers in Built Environment, 2023.
• Nyato, E.J.; Kimito, E.; Yang, J.; Lee, D.; Lee, D. "Blockchain-integrated zero-knowledge proof system for privacy-preserving near-miss reporting in construction projects." Automation in Construction, 2024.
• Kong, L.; Zhao, R.; Xue, F. "Zero-Knowledge Proof for Trusted Construction Management: A Preliminary Study of Adaptive Blockchain BIM Identity Authentication." OAPEN, 2023.
• O’Neill, S.J. "Building Information Modeling and Professional Liability: Who Owns the Risk When Digital Models Fail?." Attorney O’Neill, August 12, 2025.