Blockchain Technologies Towards Data Privacy—Hyperledger Sawtooth as Unit of Analysis

Abstract

For digital business models data is the most crucial asset—this calls for increased awareness of appropriate privacy protection measures. The European Union General Data Protection Regulation is a consequence that followed the discussions and now forces organizations to ensure that their information ecosystems comply with the law. There is currently an emerging trend to apply blockchain technologies to business models that rely on data exchange, because the technology promises to make a centralized data authority redundant. We have taken this as the purpose for our efforts to provide insights that will help decision-makers select a suitable blockchain configuration that complies with data privacy regulatory requirements. By applying design science, we created a morphological box along with a grid, serving as a ‘data privacy assessment tool’ for the blockchain configuration Hyperledger Sawtooth. The research results can potentially be generalized to assess any other blockchain configuration.