Container Execution for Cross-Jurisdiction Data Privacy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current data privacy solutions, particularly API-based ones, are inflexible and struggle to comply with jurisdiction-specific regulations, limiting the ability to process and share multi-site, multi-owner data sets while ensuring data sovereignty and secrecy.
Innovation Solution
A container execution environment is introduced that allows local execution within a regulatory jurisdiction, using a 'virtual custom' to validate and sign data, enabling the movement of executable program objects across jurisdictions while maintaining data privacy, and utilizing a service chain for encryption and validation to ensure compliance with data export policies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If API-based privacy solutions are used, then data privacy protection is achieved, but flexibility in algorithm implementation is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments data processing into distinct stages: execution environment for algorithm implementation, validation environment for privacy compliance, and signature verification for data integrity. This allows flexible algorithm choices in execution while maintaining strict privacy controls in validation, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
A digital signature mechanism acts as an intermediary between the execution environment and validation environment. The signature verifies that data has been properly processed according to privacy policies without requiring direct trust between all components, enabling flexible implementations while maintaining privacy protection.
2Productivity
If data is processed across multiple jurisdictions, then data sharing capability is improved, but compliance with jurisdiction-specific regulations becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary validation of data against jurisdiction-specific privacy policies before data is exported or shared across borders. By validating and signing data in advance within the execution environment, the system ensures compliance before data movement, simplifying cross-jurisdictional operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the state of data through digital signing and validation markings, transforming raw data into validated data with provenance information. This parameter change enables the same data to comply with different jurisdictional requirements without modifying the actual data content, facilitating cross-jurisdictional sharing.
3Reliability
If data is anonymized or aggregated before sharing, then data privacy requirements are met, but data utility and processing flexibility are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of anonymizing data before processing, the system inverts the approach by maintaining data utility throughout processing and adding privacy validation and signatures at the boundaries. This allows full data utility to be preserved during computation while privacy requirements are enforced through validation policies and digital signatures.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts privacy validation and digital signature verification as separate functions from the main data processing workflow. This allows data to be processed with full utility in the execution environment while privacy compliance is enforced by separate validation components that don't interfere with processing flexibility.
4Reliability
If strict data export policies are enforced, then data sovereignty is protected, but data transfer efficiency is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs data validation and signature generation in advance within the execution environment before data is transferred. By completing compliance checks beforehand, the actual data transfer process is streamlined and efficient, while data sovereignty is maintained through the validated and signed data structure.
Data Source
AI summary
A container includes a user program and data generated by the user program within a regulatory jurisdiction. Before the container leaves the regulatory jurisdiction, the data is validated by the jurisdiction to ensure the data complies with privacy laws of the jurisdiction. Upon ingress to a second regulatory jurisdiction, the data is signed locally to provide for confirmation that the data can leave the second regulatory jurisdiction, since it was not generated within the second jurisdiction. By allowing the user program to move from the first regulatory jurisdiction to a second regulatory jurisdiction, the disclosed embodiments overcome limitations in current solutions that restrict access to local data based on what a public application programming interface (API) can provide. By operating within the regulatory jurisdiction, albeit subject to access controls imposed by that jurisdiction, flexibility in the processing of sensitive data is improved.