GDPR and Blockchain Solutions

Abstract

Within the last years, there has been an increased attention for the development of Blockchain technologies and solutions. Blockchain represents one of the major headways’ technologies of the past decade, giving large groups of people and companies a possibility to reach agreement on record information without a central authority. Partially this can be achieved because data once stored on a Blockchain is immutable. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was developed in the European Union (EU) with the aim to standardize the privacy regulations across Europe and introduce the changes on how the personal data should be processed. The GDPR consists of a series of articles and chapters that require, among other things, provision a consent to collect and store data, identification of data controller, provision of encryption, and anonymization of data. This thesis explores the connection between Blockchain and GDPR. In particular, the thesis presents a decision framework that can help developers and decision-makers in their design of the GDPR-compliant blockchain projects. The framework, presented in the thesis, is developed based on Systematic Literature Review of existing studies on the interplay of technology and regulation. The provided findings will help the Blockchain development teams to consider the GDPR-related factors when designing and implementing the blockchain projects.