Privacy-preserving Data Sharing and Trading Ecosystem for Distributed Wireless IoT Networks (PRISTINE)

The PRISTINE project is establishing a sustainable data sharing and trading ecosystem for massive, low capability and wireless connected heterogeneous IoT devices in a privacy-preserving and secure manner. Smart contracts will be adopted in distributed ledger technology (DLT, or blockchain) to underpin access, quality control, trustworthy and high throughput transactions between data providers and consumers.

Around 90% of the data generated by sensors never leaves a device’s local storage, thus forming numerous isolated data islands and hindering the true potential of data being utilised. In addition to economic considerations, the public’s concern on data security and privacy is one of the main reasons in refusing to hand over personal sensitive data to be stored in a centralised manner. Additionally, the lack of a proper ecosystem that enables data providers to have control of their own data access rights and the ability to opt-out of the scheme, makes the problem even worse.

One promising way forward is to utilise distributed ledger technology to build a distributed and trusted ecosystem to solve the existing issues in centralised systems. However, the following challenges are to be addressed (1) different levels of data (e.g., raw and processed data) should be considered to support various applications scenarios; (2) heterogeneous IoT devices at the network’s edge may cause a performance bottleneck; (3) economic and social aspects should be jointly considered during the technology design to establish a sustainable ecosystem.