{"id":8286,"date":"2018-06-28T12:54:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T12:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=8286"},"modified":"2022-06-30T16:16:10","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T16:16:10","slug":"ibm-the-gdpr-and-blockchain-whatever-that-word-specifically-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/06\/28\/ibm-the-gdpr-and-blockchain-whatever-that-word-specifically-means\/","title":{"rendered":"IBM, the GDPR and “blockchain” \u2014 whatever that word specifically means"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gyula Pal from IBM Blockchain argues that the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation is short-sighted<\/a> in not carving out an exception for blockchains \u2014 and that this is a symptom of government’s fundamental<\/i> incompetence with new technologies, as they can only look backwards:<\/p>\n

Without regulators learning the technology behind blockchain, GDPR will only be a victim of its own intent. Once this is changed, not only will blockchains not be blocked by GDPR but effective food safety, carbon cap and trade, and a transparent jewellery supply chain, will be regulations that can be effectively enforced, collectively marking the beginning of the era of proactive regulations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, all of these use cases are prospective IBM marketing pitches \u2014 and none of them somehow require the database to be a permissioned blockchain, rather than a database with some other architecture.<\/p>\n

(I’m pretty sure that if the authors of the GDPR did understand blockchains, they’d be delighted to have drafted the antidote.)<\/p>\n

But what\u00a0specifically is<\/em> Pal asking for?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is a “blockchain”? It’s whatever I’m selling<\/h3>\n

“Blockchain” is a buzzword \u2014 it has no specific, agreed-upon meaning. There’s a spectrum from Bitcoin-style cryptocurrencies to literally just the Merkle tree,<\/a> as in Estonia’s KSI Blockchain<\/a> \u2014 which was only renamed “Blockchain” for marketing purposes.<\/p>\n

You get bad legislative attempts to define “blockchain” or “distributed ledger technology” \u2014 and the EU has one in the works<\/a> \u2014 but I’ve yet to see a legal definition of “blockchain” that would include the things sold as “permissioned blockchain,” but wouldn’t also include any Git repository.<\/a><\/p>\n

This is because the actual<\/em> meaning of “blockchain” isn’t a specific technology \u2014 it’s the hype around a particular set of unrealistic promises:<\/p>\n