Blockchain Consent Registration with Policy Engine
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems for administering consent lack flexibility and verifiability, making it difficult to prove that consent was given properly, especially in multi-party scenarios and under time-limited conditions, and are vulnerable to tampering and identity theft.
Innovation Solution
A blockchain-based system for registering and managing dynamic consent, allowing multiple parties to freely approve or withdraw consent, with a consent policy engine that includes a policy lookup table, consent state table, and consent history table, enabling unequal consent weighting and hierarchical consent mechanisms, and providing irrefutable records of consent provenance and access control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If consent records are stored in a traditional database, then the system is simple to implement, but the records are vulnerable to tampering, backdating, and faking
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional database storage with a blockchain-based distributed ledger system. This substitution of the storage mechanism provides cryptographic immutability and tamper-evidence for consent records, eliminating the vulnerability to backdating and faking while maintaining system reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a consent policy engine as an intermediary component that manages consent requests, evaluations, and registrations. This intermediary layer coordinates between multiple parties (data subjects, data processors, auditors) and maintains a centralized policy framework that ensures consistent and reliable consent management across the system.
2Reliability
If multi-party consent is required, then compliance with regulations like HIPAA and GDPR is improved, but the complexity of managing and verifying consent increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the consent management system into distinct functional components: a policy lookup table for storing consent policies, a consent state table for tracking current consent status, and a consent history table for maintaining audit trails. This segmentation allows each component to handle specific aspects of multi-party consent management independently, reducing overall system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The blockchain-based consent registration system serves multiple functions simultaneously: it provides tamper-proof record storage, enables multi-party consent tracking, maintains audit histories, and supports regulatory compliance verification. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate systems and simplifies the overall architecture despite the complexity of multi-party consent requirements.
3Adaptability or versatility
If time-limited consent windows are implemented, then flexibility in consent management is improved, but the difficulty of tracking and verifying consent within time constraints increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms through the consent state table that continuously tracks the current state of consent for each data subject and processor. The system provides real-time feedback on consent status, expiration times, and verification results, making it easier to monitor time-limited consent windows and ensure compliance without increasing verification difficulty.
Data Source
AI summary
Multi-party consent to performance of an action is securely registered by receiving from at least one consent requesting entity (CRE) a consent action request (CAR), which is matched with a consent policy. The policy may specify a plurality of consent voting entities (CVE), and direct confirmation of registration of an identity of each CVE in a blockchain. A consent request (CR) may then be issued to the CVEs. Consent request responses (CRRs) from the CVEs are then compared with at least one condition in the consent policy. A representation of a state of the CRRs is relative to the consent policy is registered in the blockchain. If the policy condition(s) is satisfied, a subject entity may be signaled to perform the action corresponding to the CAR, and a state indication of performance of the action may also be registered in the blockchain.