Creating a Decentralized Marketplace for Sensitive Data

Abstract

Recent experience has taught us that centralized data storage is prone to attacks and surveillance. As more IoT devices come online, there will be consumer demand for a better model. We propose a system for decentralized storage and sale of user data. We build a decentralized data storage system using an existing blockchain and peer-to-peer file sharing system. This is the first system of its kind to take advantage of the affordances of smart contracts to sell data automatically upon conditions delineated by users. We propose the development of a rich vocabulary to describe and automatically ‘compile’ user preferences into smart contracts through which data items or streams of data can be automatically sold. In this way, our system empowers users to take control of their own data: selling it or storing it with exclusive access themselves.