Privacy of Metadata and Public Keys in Blockchain-Based Self-Sovereign Identities

State: Assigned to Cedric Egon von Rauscher

Published: 2023-12-19

Currently Reserved

Description:

There is no clear guidance on whether metadata can be considered a private or personal data, and requires the same level of protection. Thus, currently, no identity solutions based on public blockchain address deletion of metadata from the ledger [1] However, some argue that metadata may contain private data and thus fall under data privacy regulations [1].
Additionally, there is no clear discussion on whether public keys are personal data [1]. Thus, the topic of privacy of metadata and public keys should be investigated further to draw some conclusions on whether any personal information can be extracted from those and what are the risks.

Problem:

No clear guidance on whether metadata and public keys can be considered to be private data.
BC-based identity solutions do not address deletion of metadata from a ledger.

Goals:

Investigate current arguments on privacy of metadata.
Extend the investigation by looking at public key considerations and whether it is a valid concern as mentioned by [1].
Investigate how existing SSI solutions treat metadata and public keys.
Investigate if there is any research focusing on attacks to extract private information.
Design and prototype a solution that can improve privacy of metadata.

References:

R. Belen-Saglam, E. Altuncu, Y. Lu and S. Li, “A systematic literature review of the tension between the GDPR and public blockchain systems”, Blockchain: Research and Applications, vol.4, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcra.2023.100129.
C. Allen, “The Path to Self-Sovereign Identity”, 2016. Available: https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/the-path-to-self-soverereign-identity/.
C. Allen, “Self-Sovereign Identity: 5 Years On The Initial Design, Development, and Deployment of SSI”, 2021. Available: https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/SSI-5-Years-On/.
S. Cucko, S. Becirovic, A. Kamisalic, S. Mrdovic and M. Turkanovic, “Towards the Classification of Self-Sovereign Identity Properties”, IEEE Access, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2112.04155.

30% related work, 20% design, 20% implementation, 20% evaluation, 10% documentation

Supervisors: Daria Schumm