Temporary DLT Storage for Immutable Health Plan Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for administering health insurance plans, such as HRAs and ICHRAs, face challenges in managing employee personal information while adhering to data privacy regulations and ensuring secure, immutable record-keeping of plan selections.
Innovation Solution
A system utilizing a distributed ledger technology (DLT) network to securely store and manage employee health plan selections and personal information, ensuring immutability and temporary storage, while allowing carriers and administrators to verify transactions without storing personal data, and a banking system to handle premium payments without storing personal information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If personal information is stored on a distributed ledger for immutable record-keeping, then record integrity and verification capability are improved, but data privacy compliance and security are worsened due to permanent storage requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by hashing personal information before storing it on the distributed ledger. The hashed values are stored immutably while the original personal information is kept only temporarily in memory or in secure off-ledger storage. This preliminary hashing action enables verification of plan selections without permanently exposing personal data on the ledger.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts personal information from the distributed ledger storage by storing only hashed representations on the ledger while keeping the actual personal data in separate, secure storage systems. This extraction removes the harmful element (personal information) from the public ledger while preserving the useful element (verification capability) through the stored hashes.
2Reliability
If personal information is permanently stored on the distributed ledger, then verification and immutability are improved, but compliance with data privacy regulations (such as GDPR right to erasure) is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary hashing of personal information before ledger storage, creating a verification mechanism that does not require storing the original data. This allows the system to maintain verification capability while adapting to regulatory requirements for data erasure, as the hashed values can remain on the ledger indefinitely without compromising privacy or compliance.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention creates a copy of the verification function by storing hashed representations rather than original data. The hashes serve as cryptographic copies that enable verification of plan selections without containing the actual personal information, thus allowing compliance with erasure rights while maintaining verification capability.
3Ease of operation
If personal information is stored in traditional centralized systems, then data access and processing are improved, but security risks and regulatory compliance burdens are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments data into two distinct parts: hashed personal information stored on the distributed ledger for verification purposes, and original personal information stored temporarily in secure off-ledger systems. This segmentation allows data access and processing to occur in the secure systems while the ledger provides immutable verification, reducing security risks associated with centralized storage.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention introduces hashing as an intermediary transformation between personal information and ledger storage. Instead of storing personal information directly on the ledger, the system uses hashed values as intermediaries that enable verification without exposing personal data, thus reducing security risks while maintaining operational capability.
4Object-affected harmful factors
If personal information is temporarily stored on the DLT network only during plan selection, then data privacy protection is improved, but record immutability and verification capability are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates cryptographic copies (hashes) of personal information that are stored immutably on the DLT network. These hash copies enable verification of plan selections without containing the actual personal information. The original personal data is stored temporarily only during plan selection, while the immutable hashes provide long-term verification capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the parameter of data representation from storing original personal information to storing transformed hashed values on the DLT network. This parameter change enables both temporary storage of personal data for privacy protection and permanent storage of verification-capable hashes, resolving the contradiction between privacy and immutability.
Data Source
AI summary
System administers defined contribution employee health insurance plans. Computing nodes of a DLT network are configured to, for each employee that registers a health care plan selection via an online exchange: (i) receive a transaction(s) that includes data indicative of the health care plan selection and personal information; (ii) store, encryptedly, on a distributed ledger of the DLT network, the transaction(s); and (iii) upon receipt of a notice that a health care insurance binder has been issued by a carrier for the plan, remove the certain personal information from the distributed ledger. A bank computer system administers an employer master account for the employer, which account includes a sub-account for each employee. The bank computer system is configured to: receive funds, via the employer, to fund premium payments for employees' plans; and pay the premium payments to the corresponding carriers.