GDPR and Blockchain: Is the New EU Data Protection Regulation a Threat or an Incentive?

The General Data Protection Regulation, a sweeping and stringent European Union wide legal framework for personal data privacy, became effective on May 25.

The GDPR's goals are: to create a uniform data regulation framework within Europe, and to strengthen individuals' control over the storage and use of their personal data.

The GDPR goes against this habit by specifying that data processors should not collect data beyond what is directly useful to their immediate interaction with consumers.

Secondly, any entity considered to be a "Data nexus" will be required to have a Data Protection Officer responsible for managing compliance with the GDPR. This DPO will be under the legal obligation to alert the supervisory authority whenever a risk to data subject's privacy arises.

Data processors have to inform the data subjects in details about the processing of the data, and how it is shared or acquired.

For a start, data processors located outside the EU that handle the personal information of EU residents will have to abide by it.

With the GDPR, will the EU become the world's data protection champion?

No doubt a strenuous legal debate lies ahead.Blockchain with GDPR?Nevertheless, the the blockchain shares many goals with the GDPR. Both aim at decentralizing data control, and tempering the power inequality between centralized service providers - in part by suppressing these, in the blockchain mythos - and end users.

Combining trusted computing with public blockchains means that the privacy of data can be protected from outside threats, and stored off-chain, with the blockchain acting as the final judge for who can access that data or not.

Because smart contracts mean no longer having to trust centralized service providers, data rights can be managed exclusively via the blockchain and trusted hardware, by users; returning control and privacy of their data back to them.