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The imminent application of the recent GDPR (May 25th) modifies the European panorama in terms of security and privacy of personal data. Overall, the GDPR could be considered a "Digital Declaration of Rights". As we saw earlier, this Regulation lists the detailed requirements that any institution or individual that processes personal data from citizens of the 28 member countries must comply with, regardless of where that company is located.
GDPR increases citizens’ rights and puts limits to the power of “digital states” such as software platforms and those that make use of them. However, it also assumes centralized models of storage and transmission of digital data. Under the new decentralized blockchain paradigm, new challenges are opened to be resolved under the common framework of GDPR.
The use of blockchain technology brings us closer than ever to digital identity models, where the user is the main owner of their data. Currently there are many different implementations of blockchain. Not all of these implementations follow the original model of the Bitcoin network as a public and pseudo-anonymous network. Many blockchain technologies are specially designed to build private networks where there is a similar figure to the central authority, which grants identity certificates to operate in the network. It would be something similar to a special participant who is responsible for issuing digital IDs to the rest of the participants. In other words, many of the applications that use blockchain continue to operate using the centralized authority model. EU GDPR was designed for this model.
In the medium term applications aimed at end users will begin to proliferate, with the objective of complying with GDPR framework and data security and privacy using partial or total implementations of blockchain technology. For example, providers of data storage software products begin to emerge. On the one hand, this product will store user data in their database systems according to GDPR and, on the other hand, they will use blockchain technology to protect the metadata associated with the stored data.
In this same line, the Blockcerts standard pursues the development of an open source technology, which allows the exchange of user certificates (academic diplomas, criminal records, work certificates, letters of recommendation, etc.) through a blockchain. Under this standard, a user requests his work life certificate through a mobile app. The corresponding authority issues the corresponding certificate and the transaction is entered in the blockchain. Then the user can share his certificate with the hiring company. This company can verify the authenticity and validity of the certificate by its hash.
Therefore, Blockchain joins other technologies that can help companies facilitating compliance with GDPR, such as data tracking tools or security solutions that allow threats detection in real time. Thanks to GDPR compliance, organizations have the opportunity to optimize their information processes, making them safer and more transparent for citizens.
Content prepared by Alejandro Alija, expert in Digital Transformation and innovation.
Contents and points of view expressed in this publication are the exclusive responsibility of its author.
Evento
DataLab Madrid organizes a new edition of Visualizar'18, a data visualization workshop. Its objective is to create a spaces for collaborative work, knowledge exchange and theoretical and practical training to investigate the social, cultural and artistic implications of data culture, opening up avenues for participation and criticism.
The meeting will take place from September 21 to October 5 at Medialab Prado. On this occasion, the event will revolve around the power of personal data. Citizens’ concerns about this issue continue growing in a year marked by the entry into force of GDPR or scandals such as Cambridge Analytica. Therefore, it is a good opportunity to develop projects that enrich the debate on privacy and the use of our personal data.
The workshop will have 3 parts: an opening day, a workshop focused on the development of ideas and a final presentation. The opening day will take place on Friday, September 21 and Saturday, September 22. Those days, organizers will introduce the workshop, the selected projects and the teams’ members, and the exhibition The Glass Room will be inaugurated. The following days, it will be time for the workshop, where the different groups will work together for developing their projects. The results will be presented on Friday, October 5.
The 6 selected projects are:
- A-9. Black Eyes: The project consists of a video-installation whit a map that integrates roads from all over the world. The user can interact directly with the work by selecting any point on the map to view real-time imagen. The objective is to raise awareness about the power of information and its influence in a globalized world.
- Microblogs and micropolitics: Participants will be able to export, scrape, encode and visualize, in an original way, the personal data that they daily produce on their public Twitter timeline. If time permits, the process will be repeated with data from public institutions and elected politicians.
- My [inte] gration. This project seeks to change the perception of the migration crisis based on the data. Through big data and thick data technologies, the rights and needs of migrants, refugees, minorities and vulnerable communities will be analyzed, with the ultimate goal of creating spaces, cities and inclusive policies. Although the proposal focuses on the city of Madrid, it is intended to be scaled to other cities and regions.
- Bad Data Challenge. During this Project, the participants will investigate erroneous data problems (that is, data sets that contain lost data, incompatible data, corrupt data, outdated data, etc.), using various tools and methodologies.
- Personal Data Game. This project want to create a board game with modeled visualizations of personal data in order to raise awareness about this topic. Those data (physical characteristics, identification properties, social features, political ideas, etc.) will give rise to attractive objects that complement each other or not. The objective of the game is to cross the board keeping the greatest amount of personal data, protecting them from the enemy (who can steal or exchange them).
- The big G and his henchmen. Those people who participate in this project will be able to develop a web tool to know what personal information store the different applications. Once this information is gathered, the participants will develop a webcomic to show how the devices collect data from users through mobile devices.
In addition, during the event various lectures and workshops will take place, as well as a meeting of citizen initiatives for privacy and personal data security.
Those people who wish to participate in visualize'18, can still sign up as collaborators. Registration, which is free up to 30 participants, will be open until Wednesday 19 at 23:59 CEST.