Personal Data Vaults
In the context of a partnership with Maastricht University, we are investigating the feasibility of moving, storing, and accessing personal (or otherwise sensitive) information, from centralised databases which are vulnerable to large-scale data leaks and theft, as well as irresponsible data mining, to data vaults stored in end-user devices that comply to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles. While this would have been impractical a decade ago, contemporary end-user devices and growing mobile network speeds now make this an interesting proposition. In our work, we investigate solutions for several challenges related to such a disruptive change in personal data persistence, such as:
- enabling 3rd parties to be granted access to FAIR data vaults in a fully auditable manner
- generating signatures for extracted information in support of provenance in data use
- replicating data in a secure way to minimise the impact of device loss or theft
People Involved: Professor Dimitris Kolovos, Dr Nicholas Matragkas, Professor Delaram Kahrobaei (York), Professor Michel Dumontier, Dr Visara Urovi, Professor David Townend, Dr Jerry Spanakis and Professor Mathieu Segers (Maastricht)