Blockchain and GDPR: Application Scenarios and Compliance Requirements

Blockchain and the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are two topics that are currently highly discussed in academia and amongst professionals. The Blockchain technology is claimed to revolutionize how business is being conducted by its way of storing data and sharing it with others. The recently introduced GDPR has a huge impact on processing personal data because it brought major changes to privacy regulation. This might also affect the processing of personal data in Blockchain-based application scenarios. Based on literature analysis, the paper at hand provides an overview of the Blockchain technology, presents a decision model, and introduces two possible Blockchain application scenarios. It analyses relevant requirements of the GDPR in view of processing personal data and compares these with the fundamental principles of the Blockchain technology. The paper concludes that processing personal data in the Blockchain is violating the GDPR because it conflicts with fundamental specification of this regulation. This finding reveals the need for further research to propose concepts and frameworks for a GDPR-compliant processing of personal data using Blockchain technology.