Platform Decentralization

Human Rights by Design

Adrian Gropper, MD

April 2022

https://bit.ly/PlatformDecentralization

“You can’t consent away your human rights.”

Michael Stokes - Patient Privacy Rights - 2018

Human Rights by Design

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 17

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 20

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 27

1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf Article II-7 is the basis for ePrivacy Directive and proposed regulation. Article II-8 is the basis for GRPR.

Platforms Use Consent to Surveillance…

Clients Trade Surveillance for Convenience…

Platforms Monetize the Surveillance.

Decentralization SHOULD enable separate assorted choices for 1, 2, and 3.

Platforms Combine:

1. Sign-in and signing
2. Requests for information
3. Storage of the result

https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/04/12/a-human-rights-approach-to-personal-information-technology/

The platform has the ability to leverage secondary (unintended) knowledge about Alice and Bob to create and monetize profiles of Alice and Bob.

Decentralization across the three components severely limits the ability for service providers and data brokers to create and monetize profiles of Alice and Bob.

Human Rights by Design

• No bundling of authentication, request, and storage
• Self-Sovereign Identity
• e.g. Sign-in with Ethereum
• DID and VC
• Delegation of Authorization
• Request Authorization (ZCash, or other bearer capability)
• Storage Access Authorization (Capability, not Identity)
• Standardized Authorization Protocol
• Essential to enable separate assortment of request and storage
• GNAP