Blockchain Ensures Transparency in Personal Data Usage: Being Ready for the New EU General Data Protection Regulation

摘要

The new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) [1][L1], which will come into effect in 2018, demands transparency as one of the main principles for the collection, processing, storing and transfer of personal data. Transparency ensures that individuals can enforce their legal rights: to withdraw consent for their personal data to be processed or to request that their data are erased. At the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology we filed a patent, based on blockchain technology, that guarantees transparency in the context of files that are exchanged in a shared data pool. It guarantees that access by partners to specific files can be traced without a central entity.