GSBN to create data-clean spaces on the shipping blockchain platform
Maritime blockchain platform GSBN (Global Shipping Business Network) has announced a partnership with Decentriq to add enhanced privacy technology to its trade data exchange system.
The GSBN platform uses blockchain technology to manage its access policies, with information visibility decided by role on the platform, on a need-to-know basis. However, the organization notes that certain scenarios require more complex data sharing processes across multiple data contributors, such as aggregating data across many operators or terminals, which the current infrastructure is not set up to handle.
The partnership with Decentriq aims to remedy this by introducing cleanrooms, leveraging a technology called confidential computing that provides a trusted execution environment at the hardware level that no one has access to.
The GSBN blockchain platform will provide a tamper-proof record of the hash of the encrypted data sent into the cleanroom, while Decentriq will offer secure confidential treatment of sensitive data, even when off-chain.
In addition, the Decentriq platform allows for granular settings in input, output and permissions, effectively introducing another layer of access control policies that can be configured based on roles and scenarios, says GSBN.
The settings are visible to all data contributors before data is sent to the cleanroom and agreed upon by all participants before the data cleanroom is published. Once published, settings cannot be changed without approval from the data contributors, and all actions are logged so that usage is restricted and monitored.
GSBN is currently developing use cases with Decentriq, such as sharing shipping activity data from multiple shipping lines with financial institutions.
“Partnering with Decentriq allows us to cover a wider range of data sharing scenarios and expand the use cases for our ecosystems beyond blockchain,” said Edmund To, CTO of GSBN.
“We believe (the) next generation of blockchain consortia will combine blockchain technology with other new technologies, such as confidential computing, which enable the aggregation of data from different sources and convert it into valuable insights while keeping it safe and secure. “
GSBN will hope to succeed where other shipping blockchain system Tradelens has failed, after the Maersk/IBM platform announced last week that it would cease operations in 2023.
