Blockchain Custom Clearance Data Storage

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current custom clearance systems face challenges with high regulatory costs, data inconsistencies, and fraud due to loopholes in data manipulation, making it difficult to ensure transparent, immutable, and verifiable custom clearance data, especially in international transactions.

Innovation Solution

A blockchain-based custom clearance platform that encrypts and stores data on a blockchain network, using smart contracts and APIs to process and verify custom clearance data, ensuring data integrity and privacy through consensus algorithms and trusted execution environments.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If data is stored in traditional centralized systems for custom clearance, then data can be easily accessed and processed, but data integrity and transparency are compromised due to manipulation risks

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata integrityVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a blockchain network as an intermediary layer between customs authorities and data sources. This mediator stores verification data immutably and provides cryptographic proof mechanisms, enabling trusted data verification without direct trust in individual data sources. The blockchain acts as a neutral third party that guarantees data integrity through its consensus mechanism and distributed ledger structure.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces traditional mechanical trust-based verification systems with cryptographic verification mechanisms. Instead of relying on organizational trust or manual verification processes, the system uses digital signatures, hash functions, and cryptographic protocols to automatically verify data authenticity. This substitution eliminates the need for complex human-mediated verification while enhancing reliability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Object-affected harmful factors

If encryption is applied to protect data privacy on blockchain, then data security is improved, but data accessibility and processing efficiency are reduced

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata privacy protectionVSAvoiddata processing efficiency
Core Design Contradiction:
Object-affected harmful factorsVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments data into different privacy levels and applies selective encryption. Sensitive personal information is encrypted while less sensitive verification data remains accessible. The system divides data into public identifiers (visible for verification) and private information (encrypted), allowing efficient processing of verification operations without decrypting all data. This segmentation enables parallel processing of unencrypted portions while maintaining security for sensitive fields.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements differential privacy protection where different portions of data receive different levels of encryption based on their sensitivity. Critical personal identifiers use strong encryption, while transaction hashes and verification codes use lighter cryptographic mechanisms. This local quality approach optimizes the balance between security and processing efficiency by applying computational resources proportionally to data sensitivity rather than uniformly across all data.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

3Reliability

If blockchain consensus mechanisms are used to ensure data immutability, then fraud detection is improved, but transaction processing time increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvefraud detection capabilityVSAvoidtransaction processing time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements partial consensus mechanisms where not all blockchain nodes must validate every transaction. Instead, a subset of trusted nodes or a simplified consensus protocol validates critical customs clearance data. This partial action approach maintains sufficient fraud detection capability by having multiple independent validators while reducing the time cost compared to full network consensus. The system accepts that absolute unanimity is unnecessary for most verification scenarios.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent performs preliminary validation of data before it enters the blockchain consensus process. Data sources must provide cryptographic proofs and meet validation criteria before transaction creation, filtering out obviously fraudulent data early. This preliminary action reduces the burden on consensus mechanisms by ensuring only pre-validated transactions require full consensus processing, thereby reducing overall transaction time while maintaining fraud detection effectiveness.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP3837617B1Distributed storage of custom clearance data
Publication Date: 2023.08.02 ALIPAY LABS (SINGAPORE) PTE LTD
  • EP3837617B1 patent drawingFigure 1~2
  • EP3837617B1 patent drawingFigure 3
  • EP3837617B1 patent drawingFigure 4

AI summary

Disclosed herein are methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for data storage. One of the methods includes: receiving data for storage from a service platform, wherein the data includes mutable data, immutable data, and index data identified by the service platform; storing the mutable data in a cache storage, wherein the mutable data is to be executed by a smart contract; initiating, a consensus algorithm to record the immutable data on a blockchain; in response to successfully performing the consensus algorithm, recording, based on invoking the smart contract, the immutable data on the blockchain, wherein the blockchain is stored in a database that has lower storage cost than the cache storage; and linking, based on invoking the smart contract, the mutable data and the immutable data based on the index data.