Public Accountability Chain (PAC): A Framework for Truth in Distributed Data.
https://pac.foundation/
The Unification foundation’s mission & workflow is to maintain a decentralized blockchain that anybody can contribute to and build on. All the while, our enterprise division works directly with clients, building out product & solution implementations on the FUND blockchain.
When we were approached by an anonymous source to build out Public Accountability Chain, it was an intriguing offer because:
1 — It addressed a pertinent need for accountability in data sharing, transparency and record keeping in a time when the maintenance of trusted, impartial records that affect global citizens — from both a political and health perspective — and the transparent access to those records are most imminent.
2 — We would effectively be building a decentralized engine for data collection, distribution and storage on top of our blockchain to allow others to use the platform in ways that matters most to their constituents.
This engine would be designed in such a way that can be used for multiple types of public records and would have no “central” point of failure, meaning that even if we wanted to/were ordered to remove data, it would not be possible.
Introducing Public Accountability Chain (PAC)
PAC’s goal is to bring transparency, immutability, and sovereignty to relevant data by combining centralized, scattered datasets that affect the public.
The current hosted version of PAC, showing chain data is focusing on Police conduct reports (pulling from seven different sources of which all are centralized). PAC takes these data sources and standardizes, cross-references & reconciles them them into the same format. We are then storing these on a decentralized database (IPFS) (making them immutable) and timestamping the ongoing results to the FUND mainchain (checking/controlling for tamper-proofing/authenticity of the source data).
While the initial version focuses on police data, given the relevance of the subject in recent months, the platform is designed in such a way that other entities can branch/extend far beyond in multiple ways:
1 — Contribute by adding more sources of accountability.
2 — Take mirrors/snapshots of the existing databases and code and host it themselves. Some will do on decentralized servers, some on centralized. The point is we have created a literal decentralized repository of continually updated data.
3 — And most interesting, to utilize the PAC platform to build any other source/type of data relevant for public accountability. These can be for police data, government data, health tracking data, or quite frankly anything relevant to the developer’s community.
The big question we get asked is regarding data curation. I.e. what if someone adds “inappropriate/illegal/fake news” data will that get into the PAC?
There is a very logical answer for this, anybody can do anything they want really and that includes us. On http://pac.foundation we control this website and choose which data feeds to display. Someone else could take a fork of the site with completely different sources. Will it be “true” their version? It will be true to them.
There is a fine line between having a limitless framework of 0’s and 1’s and then the human decision what to display. So for now our curation is the lynchpin. Of course if we are required to take down pac.foundation by some law or court order, then of course we will obey — however the sources and codebase from which the website pulls can’t be removed.
Why now?
At Unification, we realized it’s time to use our platform to wrap/lock those records in amber in the same way that social media does.
When the idea of PAC was brought to us, we noticed that although there are some good sources, most are recorded on staggered databases in different places with different sources.
Most of these records are kept on individual servers, often in easily tampered, corruptible formats such as CSV or Excel. Because the databases are centralized, the information can be changed or removed at any time by anyone with access to the server keys (or taken down by a governing authority), and would greatly benefit from the tools on our platform, as for data to be truly immutable and useful, it requires standardization, immutability, reconcilability, & Sovereignty, which are all core to Unification.
Why Unification?
Unification started two years ago with the intent of bringing blockchain to the people. The two biggest benefits that have always stood out are:
- Immutability and reconciliation of Information
Immutable — Unchanging over time or unable to be changed.
Reconcilable — The ability to compare multiple sets of information for a consistent “truth” - The sovereignty of personal data when used as an aggregate
Sovereign — Ownership and permission to use the data remains with the user, not institutions
What about The American President’s new “police brutality database”?
As we started the development of PAC, we were informed of the executive order by the American president provisioning to create a database “concerning instances of excessive use of force related to law enforcement matters, accounting for applicable privacy and due process rights.”
We are encouraged by this effort, but we see a few shortcomings as pointed out by many news outlets which will be complemented by PAC.
Several shortcomings of the proposed database include:
- The database won’t be accessible to the public, who will only see periodic releases of anonymized, aggregated information instead of details.
- It does not include incidents in which officers only faced internal discipline (not termination) for inappropriate use of force.
- It excludes instances where law enforcement officers weren’t “afforded fair process,” a potentially disastrous loophole depending on one’s definition of “fair.”
- Most importantly, it will not allow the addition of details by the public.
Why PAC?
We saw an application of the platform that we’ve built to serve the public good, and we could do so in a rapidly deployable fashion.
Although social media does a good job of transmitting records and making us aware of the reasons for justice, most reports are scattered in such a way that they can not be easily substantiated or cross-referenced.
One of our longer-term missions at Unification has been to bring data sovereignty and standardization to the masses. This is one of the greatest examples of how Unification can serve the public and the greater good.
PAC standardizes, cross-references and reconciles data from multiple sources for the public to use, build on and contribute to.
PAC At pac.foundation serves its constituents by
i — Searching publicly available databases & info sources of police misconduct.
ii — Standardizing the data into the same format (so it can be indexed and searched).
iii — backs up the full database to IPFS which is a distributed, decentralized storage network — so it is not in a single source of failure (to keep a non-destructible, reconcilable record of the data)
iv — Provides a sortable, sharable front-end to share this information easily & publicly
v — submits a BEACON timestamp hash to the Unification Mainchain for each new entry added & stamps the intermittent feed regularly to the Unification mainnet (to keep immutable verifiable hash link of the data)
vi — Provide a public data access API to query the data and puts up a frontend for a non-technical user to be able to search and access the data (to allow full sovereignty of the data)
The next steps for the PAC foundation are to
vii — Allows citizens to submit new sources into PAC. New additions will be cross-verified in a staging server before being added to PAC. This will make new source additions such as the government proposed database
Viii — add new sources and APIs
Beacon Implementation
Technically speaking, PAC is an independent Beacon — which is registered to the FUND Mainchain. Beacons are a Unification core blockchain product that provide immutability and tamper-resistance to existing databases. BEACON allows a single partner to continue to use their existing database structure (such as the ones we’ve discussed above) and enable audit-ability of any record entry to their database.
This is exceptionally useful for entities that need to prove that data has not been changed by an administrator acting in bad faith or a hacker. By timestamping the database to the Unification Mainnet for public record on fixed intervals, anyone can verify the integrity of the database.
For example, here is an incident recorded on June 29, 2020:
The incident was originally captured on Twitter and copied over to the 2020 Police Brutality database
Once recorded on our platform, pac created a beacon hash that was timestamped at July 6, 2020, 09:00:22 and successfully submitted to Mainchain.
When queried a hash comparison is dynamically carried out on that record. The hash comparison is a dual layer tamper resistance which basically means that even a single minor update to a single row of data (changing “peaceful” to “enraged” for example) would be instantly detectable.
If there are any changes detected, the Hash match would show “no” and showcase a warning of tampering.
FUND Contribution
The current cost of time stamping is 1 FUND per stamp. There is a block produced on Mainchain every 5–6 seconds — however it is not required to stamp that often. The PAC beacon is stamping once every thirty seconds at a cost of 1.2m FUND cycled into the system per year.
You can see the on chain enterprise purchase order and here is an example of the WRKchain paying 1 FUND into the ecosystem for a stamp on block 205068 proposed by Helium.
We will continue to serve our mission to improve this platform. However, in a truly decentralized fashion, we do not own these records, nor can we remove or alter them. Our end goal is a public, decentralized chain of reports for transparency and accountability.
Unification is an open-source project. View our GitHub here.
PAC is also is all open sourced at our github here & Given the flexibility of the platform, we look forward to expanding the mission of PAC beyond police records to other immutable public, government and health records & encourage those interested to review, and contribute to the project technically https://github.com/unification-com/pac , contribute sources on here.
Our end goal is a public decentralized chain of reports and accountability. To contribute to Public Accountability Chain get in contact with us at pac@unification.com
The Unification network provides rapidly deployable, high-throughput, and secure blockchain tools that bring security, efficiency, and accountability to businesses. The Unification mainnet launched on May 14, 2020 along with the Unification Enterprise Alliance (UEA), comprised of 96 organizations committed to validating the Unification network.
Contact Information:
Unification Foundation Pte Ltd
160 Robinson Road #26–06
Singapore
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hello@unification.com
