Which makes more sense: blockchain or the “right” to be forgotten?
US think tank Coin Center has rightly pointed out that recent EU privacy legislation enshrining the absurd concept of the “right to be forgotten”, is incompatible with blockchain technology, that stores transactions in a register that cannot subsequently be modified without leaving a trace.
It is possible to incorporate a transaction that amends or changes a previous one, but what is in the chain stays in the chain, which is precisely the idea: each transaction joins a previous one and the next one through a series of cryptographic algorithms that ensure its integrity, and is temporarily sealed with the rest of the transaction block so that it cannot be eliminated or altered. There is no way someone can ask that a transaction be eliminated because it is their “right”. Why? Because that right never existed in the first place and will never exist, regardless of what a bunch of brainless lawmakers unable to see the consequences of their actions say.
