When it comes to data privacy, there is a lot of complexity. Corporations are faced with the challenge of effectively protecting their customers' personal information while being able to manage the associated costs and risks. In today's highly connected world, where data protection regulations continue to evolve, corporations need new technology that can help them navigate these difficult waters.

By the use of blockchain technology, organisations can safeguard the data from being modified and manipulated. Blockchain is also transparent and immutable, which means that it cannot be tampered with easily. The data stored in blockchain technology is encrypted, distributed and secure by nature.This makes it difficult for hackers to penetrate the blockchain network and gain access to sensitive data. It is also easier to track and audit than the traditional database systems. In fact, it can be said that blockchain technology is the future of data security.

What is Data Privacy?

Data privacy is the security, retention, and disposal of records or information concerning personal information. Data privacy strives to protect individual's right to privacy and self-determination while ensuring that businesses have control over data they collect and manage on behalf of customers.

Data, which is a digital asset of a company, helps a business to carry out its different operations effectively. Companies must follow certain parameters

• A business must comply with legal regulations regarding the collection, storage, and processing of personal data.
• Legal legislation requires that companies adhere to a set of parameters when implementing blockchain technology in order to protect consumers’ privacy.
• Companies should identify key stakeholders and assign responsibility, liability, and rights to each.

A private blockchain is relatively simple, and it is straightforward to apply regulations to them. Public blockchains are more complex, though; regulating such a network would be difficult because no central authority governs the system.

Recent Trends in Data Privacy Laws

• Disinformation spread like wildfire during the pandemic: fake news was often more readily available than real-life facts, and people were most likely to encounter it when they were at home
• During the pandemic, many people chose to work from home, which exposed employers to legal risks because they could no longer monitor their employees’ work.
• Businesses collect data about their customers to better understand target markets, sell services (or products) and learn from behaviour. However, it is also important to follow data collection laws so that the organisation does not go beyond what is allowed.

How blockchain helps with data security and data privacy?

Blockchain architecture is modelled after the P2P (peer-to-peer) protocol and involves centralised control of data processing.

• Data privacy complicates the identification of data controllers in blockchain implementations.
• Regulations imposed on distributed blockchain networks have high overhead costs.
• It is difficult to ensure data privacy in a public blockchain with undefined groups, and certain restrictions are imposed when someone plans for cross-border data transfer.
• To make the system secure, it is essential to ensure that no one can retrieve personal data except its rightful owner.

How can we solve the issue of data privacy in blockchain?

We can take numerous steps to keep data on a blockchain anonymous.

Permissioned Blockchain: Using permissioned blockchain, we can implement a governance model to authorise only a handful of participants who help responsibly in data allocation. A way to reduce personal data could be by using technical resources such as encryption and hashing algorithms.

Limit personal data: By using a one-time address, the personal data of each individual will not be stored on or accessible by anyone else. Also, an effective supply management system can help limit the amount of data available for storage in the blockchain.

What are the use cases for blockchain in security?

IT Sector : Blockchain technology is especially useful in the IT sector to secure edge devices with authentication. Since data and connectivity are central concerns of this field, blockchain can provide a secured foundational layer for decentralised interaction and exchange.

Data Integrity : Because blockchain is encrypted and no one can manipulate data, it helps improve confidentiality and data integrity.

Ensuring Data Security : The blockchain could be used to improve secure messaging, even when sending information over social media. This is because the technology helps keep personal data safe while facilitating communication between users of a service or platform.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) : Publishing keys on the blockchain eliminates the need for false key propagations.

Safer DNS : The decentralised nature of blockchain technology means that an attack on any single node in the network would not affect the functionality of other nodes.

Ways to address data privacy concerns on blockchain

Before putting personal data on a blockchain, you’ll need to become familiar with restrictions in various nations. Since the definition of personal data varies, blockchain technologies that use public-private keys—like those in most cryptosystems—often fall outside of most restrictions on personal data.

Cases which avoid the use of data that can potentially identify a person include

• Financial systems in which the identity of a person is never recorded.
• Supply chain management.
• Managing countless IoT sensors, many of which are not associated with individual persons.
• Other applications that do not gather or record information on individuals.

To address concerns about personal data protection, organisations should consider adopting blockchain techniques that employ both on-chain and off-chain storage.Transactions can be used as pointers or other access-control mechanisms to allow for simple management of more complicated storage areas.

Blockchain technology could enhance the privacy of personal databases by making it more difficult to track individual users. For example, adding noise or mixing transactions together would be two ways in which blockchain data can be made less readable and harder to interpret—and therefore distinguish between different users’ identities.

While public blockchains are freely accessible by anyone, private blockchains restrict access to known users and minimise risk.

Analysing the data before storing it in the blockchain and choosing an appropriate blockchain for use, developers need to protect personal data by considering several elements.

Visit us: www.hbdtoken.com