The EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policies place an emphasis on the ”right to be forgotten”, meaning that at any time an organization should be able to delete users’ personal data at their request. With immutable, decentralized blockchain technology, the question arises as to how blockchain projects will be able to comply with these principles.
Who is in charge of regulating blockchain data?
Indeed, the foundations of trust in blockchain comes from its immutability, something perhaps inherently contradictory to the new GDPR policies. Public blockchain configurations are decentralized, relying on peer-to-peer (p2p) transactions without any control or authorization. This means that anybody participating can be seen as a controller in the eyes of the law because of the copy on their computer.
While private blockchains make it easier to identify the administrator, it is still far different than the classic scheme considered by GDPR that easily identifies a data controller. So, legal responsibilities are transferred to people orbiting around the blockchain, considered as third services, giving them the responsibility to uphold the regulations.
Each blockchain project must be considered on an individual basis to identify the obligations imposed in regards to respecting data subject’s rights. There is yet to be a consensus in the blockchain community, however, how third services can respect and comply with the right to be forgotten.
Exploring immutability solutions: alternative blockchains
Business and innovation blockchain developers BTL judged a hackathon at the Consensus Conference in New York last month, where developers were challenged to build various applications capable of permanently deleting data on the Interbit blockchain platform.
Interbit differs from public blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin, as it has been purpose-built for business enterprises and meeting GDPR’s requirement of the “right to be forgotten”, hence enabling the permanent removal of information.
BTL even believes that the future of data protection lies in blockchain solutions, arguing “we would go as far as to say that you can only truly meet this (GDPR) requirement with … a blockchain solution…Interbit allows data to be segregated across multiple chains within single applications. Delete a chain, (and the) data is gone, for good.”
The separation of data across several private chains both facilitates GDPR compliance and implements total data privacy that lacks on public blockchains. While Interbit is one just solution now, the industry is sure to follow with many more innovations to come.
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