by Fotis Fouskas (AEGIS)
Blockchain technology is rapidly transforming industries across the globe, and for good reason. Beyond the hype, blockchain offers a revolutionary approach to data management combining security and transparency. Imagine a world where transactions are recorded on a shared, immutable ledger, accessible to all participants. A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, and often public, digital ledger consisting of records called blocks that are used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved block cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks. This is the promise of blockchain – a system that eliminates intermediaries, reduces fraud, and empowers individuals with total control over their information.
As an implementation of this promise, the CONSENTIS project aims to ensure transparency, accountability, and user control over data usage, fostering trust. Specifically, key elements of consent, including data subject, specific personal data, requesting entity, agreement evidence, context description, and consent status (valid or invalid), are used to create consent policies and rules embedded in consent contracts. By providing a structured and standardized approach to consent management, the CONSENTIS project empowers individuals and organizations to navigate the complexities of data privacy with confidence and clarity.
CONSENTIS will develop a Blockchain-Enabled dynamic consent management solution using smart contracts. The aim is to provide specific, informed, and engaged consent agreements for the legal use of personal data while ensuring accountability, transparency, privacy, and security. In order to meet the previously mentioned requirements, the proposed consent management solution will rely on permissioned blockchain consortium network for secure and privacy-preserving interactions and data exchanges among users and data processors operating under different conditions and policies.
AEGIS IT RESEARCH participation in CONSENTIS affords technology and industry partners a competitive edge by providing early access to state-of-the-art cybersecurity technologies and methodologies. This involvement not only boosts their cybersecurity capabilities but also establishes them as industry frontrunners in addressing privacy concerns and facilitating secure data sharing. Effectively exploiting the project outcomes enables the integration of innovative solutions into their product portfolios, paving the way for new revenue streams and an expanded market share. Furthermore, their active engagement nurtures strategic collaborations with academia, research institutions, and fellow industry players, cultivating a collaborative ecosystem that fuels continuous innovation.
AEGIS IT RESEARCH aims to introduce the Blockchain Asset Management Framework (BAMF), rooted in the security, transparency, and efficiency-centric Hyperledger Fabric platform, is a sophisticated system designed for the nuanced asset management, providing a full suite of functionalities to create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) assets driven by smart contracts. BAMF capitalizes on the inherent immutability of blockchain technology. Once a transaction is recorded, this transaction cannot be altered or deleted, ensuring the integrity and permanence of asset records. This immutability is crucial in asset management, as it provides an unchangeable history of asset transactions, bolstering trust, countability and reliability in the system. Finally, BAMF leverages the distributed architecture of Hyperledger Fabric, involving a network of peer nodes, orderer nodes, and membership service providers (MSPs). Orderer nodes ensure transaction consistency across the network, MSPs handle identity management, crucial for network security and Peer nodes that play a pivotal role in maintaining a consistent ledger, validate transactions and executing chaincodes (i.e. smart contracts). These chaincodes are fundamental to BAMF’s operations, encapsulating complex business logic for asset management across various industries.
In the context of CONSENTIS the incorporation of Hyperledger Aries and Indy will be investigated in an effort to support Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). The development of this framework will be tightly integrated with BAMF to provide a holistic consent management model over SSI. By leveraging Aries’ robust communication protocols and Indy’s decentralized identity ledger, the CONSENTIS will create a secure, interoperable, and user-centric identity management system with streamlined authentication processes and practices over Decentralized identities (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs)
References
[1]: CONSENTIS Grant Agreement, Part B – Page 13 of 50
