Rome, July 3rd, 2018 – The Ministry of Economy and Finance together with a consortium of 10 European partners (public and private entities from seven different countries) has started PoSeID-on, a project which aims at creating an innovative platform for personal data protection and management. PoSeID-on will have a total estimated cost of € 3,050,605.00, of which the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 program will finance € 2,541,208.75.
The European Commission has selected the project among more than 80 proposals received through the call "Cybersecurity PPP: Privacy, Data Protection, Digital Identities". The platform that will be produced will allow public and private organizations to guarantee rights such as the transportability of data, the right of access, the right to be forgotten and the restriction of the processing of personal data, thus implementing the principles contained in the new General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union (GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation).
The project will be evaluated through four different pilot studies (in Italy, France, Spain and Austria) that will test its functionalities in public, private and mixed contexts.
In particular, in the Italian context this tool will be integrated and tested within the NoiPA system, which, managing a very high quantity of personal data, will provide an even more concrete example of its possible benefits.
PoSeID-on will use smart contracts and blockchain technology to ensure to its users the possibility to make informed decisions about who will process their data, enabling or revoking the permissions and possibly asking to permanently remove their personal data on the basis of the reliability of the responsible for data processing.
The blockchain technology guarantees the principle of transparency since the processed data are visible and public but at the same time protected by a complex encryption system. Accordingly, the smart contracts are configured as tools that working on the blockchain define the standards of conduct to access certain services.
The system will be built respecting strict safety standards. Indeed, thanks to the encryption system, the platform will guarantee the anonymity of the information related to the identities of the subjects accessing the Internet Services and will act in compliance with the eIDAS (electronic identification authentication and signature) regulation in order to reduce identity fraud and protect the access to personal data.
PoSeID-on is the second initiative led by the Information Systems and Innovation Directorate of the MEF receiving funding through Horizon2020. The European program financing scientific research and technological innovation has, indeed, already enabled the international project SUNFISH "Safe sharing of data between federated private clouds", dedicated to "Advanced Cloud Services and Infrastructures".
The project partners
PoSeID-on will be implemented in the next three years by a consortium of 10 European partners from seven different countries (Austria, Spain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Holland and Italy):
- MINISTRY OF ECONOMY AND FINANCE AND SOGEI
- ACCENTURE SPA
- PNO INNOVATION
- E-LEX - STUDIO LEGALE
- FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION
- AYUNTAMIENTO DE SANTANDER
- SOFTEAM
- UNIVERSIDADE DE COIMBRA
- BUNDESRECHENZENTRUM GMBH (BRZ) e il Ministero delle Finanze Austriaco (BMDW)
- SMARTFEEDZ BV