Blockchain and Personal Data Privacy

The past year has been nothing short of disastrous for data breaches. Yahoo, Equifax, MyFitnessPal and even the goliath that is Facebook have proven themselves unable to protect user data. The Cambridge Analytica scandal in particular was incredibly chilling, as even users that hadn’t granted access to the This is Your Digital Life app saw their information harvested to fuel a sinister politically-motivated machine.

Even in the wake of Zuckerberg’s appearance before Congress, there’s been very little change. The #deletefacebook movement, although seemingly momentous in the weeks following the breach, slowly ran out of steam. As with the previous controversies associated with Facebook’s handling of privacy, the Cambridge Analytica scandal is poised to fade into the shadows as people continue to share personal data on the platform.

That said, people are waking up to the value of their information, and the importance of keeping it secure. It’s fair to say at this point that the data shared with a centralized entity is not shared, but given away, whether it’s to be monetized by a company, or stored indefinitely in a database waiting to be accessed by hackers.

There’s no reason we should continue to stand for this. Data is increasingly becoming a commodity, and blockchain technology is exactly the sort of innovation that can put the power of that commodity back into the hands of those to whom it belongs. With Lightstreams, we’re leveraging some of the most interesting applications of distributed ledger tech to give individuals back their sovereignty in the digital era.

Worth noting is our response to GDPR. With the deadline coming into play next month, many blockchain projects, by virtue of their open nature, will automatically be in violation of the regulations due to user data being publically viewable. Confidentiality the lifeblood of Lightstreams, and the on-chain storage of sensitive information is a practice that is not only highly costly, but one that we frown upon from a privacy perspective.

We use a modified but nonetheless compatible version of Ethereum coupled with a privacy-centric spin on IPFS to ensure we achieve this. The approach is two-fold: the peer-to-peer IPFS database guarantees highly-secure and encrypted storage of sensitive information, free of the shackles of centralisation (whilst also storing potentially confidential data off-chain).

The Lightstreams blockchain protocol then allows users to embed access to the files into a smart contract, which can be accessed for a fee in native PHT tokens (opening up the possibility for users to monetise the data should they wish to sell it).

It’s time to put an end to data silos that sit idly, waiting to be breached! It’s time to leave behind incumbent systems that leech sensitive information to sell back to advertisers and other third-parties! It’s time to embrace the potential of blockchain technology to empower the individual!

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