General data protection regulation (GDPR) considerations

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (https://gdpr-info.eu/) is an EU law that defines how personal data is acquired, processed, and ultimately erased from a computing system. The definition of personal data in GDPR is quite broad—examples include name, email address, and IP address.

Blockchain, by design, creates an immutable, permanent, and replicated record of the data. A blockchain network based on Hyperledger Fabric will obviously encompass these three properties. Thus storing personal data on a blockchain network which cannot be deleted or modified can be challenging from the perspective of GDPR. Similarly, it is important to know who that personal data is shared with.

The channel and the channel private data feature of Hyperledger Fabric provides a mechanism for determining the entities with which data is shared. In the case of channel private data, the data is never stored on a blockchain, but its cryptographic hashes are...