Layers of privacy in the blockchain: From technological solutionism to human-centred privacy-compliance technologies

• Published in: International journal of law in context Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 51 - 69
• Main Author: Baquero, Pablo Marcello
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.03.2023
• Subjects: Access to information; Blockchain; Blockchains (Databases); Compliance; Consortia; Data protection; Design; Digital currencies; General Data Protection Regulation; Observatories; Privacy; Technological innovations; Violations; United Kingdom > UK; England; Wales
• ISSN: 1744-5523; 1744-5531
• DOI: 10.1017/S1744552322000465

Different organisations recently published reports identifying the challenges and potential solutions to ensure privacy in blockchain platforms. The proposed solutions frequently emphasise the role of privacy- compliance technologies to be incorporated into the blockchain design. Often, these solutions imply a techno-regulatory approach, ignoring that the level of privacy implemented in a blockchain involves legal and policy choices, disregarding the need to implement human participation and contestability in these platforms. Against this backdrop, this paper proposes to examine how privacy-compliance technologies can incorporate human participation and contestability: first, resorting to the interdisciplinary literature to examine how technological design could balance privacy with human oversight; second, discussing the challenges to ensure ex post contestability for aggrieved data subjects; third, examining the difficulties in identifying liable parties in a blockchain platform. The current disregard of the social and human element risks undermining the role of privacy-compliance technologies in the blockchain.