Gartner says that “Blockchain’s business value-add will grow to $176 billion by 2025”. Blockchain technology comes with great potential that can have a positive impact on various industries and departments of government.
However, the basic understanding of what blockchain is and how it can help with private data protection is still not clear among the general public.
“Blockchain technology-a distributed ledger created a backbone of an entirely new type of internet wherein participants or users can distribute digital information but are not allowed to copy or edit that same information. Although, Blockchain was originally designed for digital currency “Bitcoin”, the tech community explored additional potential uses of the bitcoin technology.”
Few public and private enterprises around the globe have converged to secretly develop a huge surveillance infrastructure. With the increased use of social media, messengers, e-commerce site, we are unknowingly diminishing our own rights to data protection and privacy.
This relatively new technology Blockchain can offer a solution to this. Its wonderful features like decentralization, hack-proof, encryption & validation can offer people with enhanced privacy, protection of wealth.
For any citizen storing and uploading private information such as bank account number, home addresses, and other social security numbers has become a common rule. This norm actually continually exposes any person’s private data to vulnerabilities. It makes them open to breaches not only to hackers but also to the platforms that misuse the loopholes in privacy agreements and sell data to third parties.
Truly speaking, data analytics companies have been applying this same steps for many years, only often with permission. Also, to your surprise scraping and selling user data remains in the business model of large tech companies depend on to grow and thrive.
Blockchain technology can help citizens to store their private information in a more secure, decentralized way. They will maintain the ownership of their own data and can decide when and where to share. This will prevent the hackers and third parties to get the personal data without permission.
Encrypted and validated
Things which happen over the blockchain platform are all encrypted. You can check the file signature across all the network and verify that the data is not altered. If anyone changes the data, the signature provided will display as invalid. Blockchain offers reliable and independent data verification which lets you check the data you record and stored online with the third party remain changes for months or years later.
Hack-proof
Once the data is recorded in the ledger it is impossible to alter or remove it without invalidating the signature. Every little information needs to be confirmed by multiple nodes on the network. As the data are broken into small pieces and protected by codes it will need a huge resource to understand the series and start any fraudulent activity.
Talking about individualizing wealth control, as the global economy is more interconnected now, citizens are gaining access to new types of capital and market which is outside the influence of their governments. However, the autocratic governments have responded with a surveillance program to maintain control over the individual’s access to resources.
China’s case of the Social credit system is an example of this thing. This affects different activities like securing loans to even operating any sating site as well.
Cryptocurrencies can help out to get rid of this. They can support people to involve in a different form of finance which isn’t under the judgment of the state. It will simply remove the need of middlemen for the transactions. Even, people or group who have been obstructed by the government can also participate. More the vendors opt cryptocurrency, the more market can feel the impact.
Conclusion
When blockchain is offering the opportunity for individuals to protect personal and sensitive data, they should not trust any third parties, instead, they should use this platform for betterment. Using this technology, users can actually control their data without compromising with the security or limiting companies’ potential to offer personalized service.
Also, with a decentralized platform making legal decisions about gathering, storing and sharing data would be simpler. Additionally, the laws and norms could be programmed into the blockchain, so that they are followed automatically. As the ledger is tamper-proof, the digital ledger will work as evidence for storing data.
Guest article written by: Anand Mahajan, CEO, Sphinx Solution -an accredited company rendering Blockchain, web, ecommerce, mobile app development, big data and business intelligence services