The entanglement between blockchain technology and the right to be forgotten

The blockchain serves as the solution to many problems, such as the totalitarian crisis caused by excessive centralization, the inflation caused by the government's arbitrary printing of money, etc., but at the same time, it also produces unsolved problems. One of them is the right to be forgotten…

What is blockchain?

The blockchain is a continuous block of text that connects the content to be protected through cryptography. This is a method of protecting content as opposed to a central, centralized approach. The central centralized protection content is a kind of transaction records and deposit records of all people that the highest central agency is responsible for keeping, and in order to keep it, a strong defense technology must be established to avoid tampering, so that the only thing that can change and tamper with the records is the central agency. custodian. Because there is a possibility that the person with the highest authority can tamper with the records arbitrarily in the centralized type, and once the records are tampered with, the property of the people will be seriously damaged.
In order to solve this problem, an unmodifiable, permanent, and transparent blockchain technology has been developed.

In addition to the well-known Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, the blockchain also performs different functions in different places. For example, the matter creation platform that emphasizes that content will have preservation is to preserve works through blockchain technology.
In addition, blockchain technology is also used as a means to break through totalitarianism.
For example, in the past, there was an example of a professor of Peking University sexually assaulting a female student, which led to a female student committing suicide. Although many people reposted this news on Weibo and other online media, these messages were blocked and removed from the shelves on the Internet. This whole thing is down. Once these messages are unsearchable on the Internet and forbidden to be delivered in real life, it will no longer be known. Chinese netizens with a sense of justice spread this incident on the Ethereum transaction records, breaking through the blockade of China's Internet and allowing this incident to be preserved.

The information on the blockchain has the characteristics of immutability, permanent preservation and transparency, which can be used as a method to break through the centralized government.

What is the right to be forgotten?

Simply put, the right to be forgotten is the right to request the organization that holds the personal data to delete its personal data. It is common to ask Google to delete the search results about yourself. Once the search platform deletes the search results about yourself, even if the content still exists on a specific web page, but cannot be searched from Google, the result will be forgotten by the public. .

Therefore, Google has also set up a special page to explain the content of the right to be forgotten, and how to request Google to delete search results (if it is deemed "untrue", "outdated", "invading personal privacy" or "negatively affecting personal reputation"). According to Google 's own statistics released in 2018, they have received 2.4 million requests to delete personal data since 2014, and agreed to delete 43.7% of them.

Conflict between blockchain and the right to be forgotten?

Emphasis on decentralized, unmodifiable, permanent storage, and transparent blockchain technology. If you encounter a similar request to delete personal information, how to deal with it, the following problems will arise:

1. Who should I request to delete personal information?

The security that the blockchain emphasizes is that no one can claim to control the information on the blockchain, and the original producer cannot modify the information that has been on the chain. Through the decentralized design, this information is confirmed by several nodes and becomes unmodifiable, so that no definite person or organization can claim to have the information and further delete the information.

2. How to delete information?

Even if the first problem is solved, then you have to ask, how to delete the information? Although in Satoshi Nakamoto's paper it is mentioned "Once the latest transaction in a coin is buried under enough blocks, the spent transactions before it can be discarded to save disk space."

Bitcoin: A Peer-to- Peer Electronic Cash System, Satoshi Nakamoto

This sentence means that Bitcoin can be removed from the blockchain in a technical way, but how it should be done, and how it should be done technically, is still unknown.

How the right to be forgotten is realized in the blockchain technology, although there is no big problem at present, how to interact in the future is the key issue of how to strike a balance between technology and law.

Original link: Kai's Lawlawland