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Welcome to the BC-TA wiki!

The project is creating a decentralized platform between research labs, enabling a secure IAM for researchers where their labs act as identity providers, allowing them to access data shared by other labs in a secure, auditable accountable way. We propose using Blockchain technology, where a consortium blockchain is maintained by multiple laboratories and research facilities.

For a transparent, mutually-agreed and well defined rules and engagement from researchers and labs about how the shared data can and will be used, we propose implementing the engagement form [to be signed by lab members/collaborators] on a smart contract. A smart contract is only deployed on a consortium after the mutual agreement of all nodes [labs] after a consensus, and any updates to the terms will require publishing a new version of the smart contract.

We use Membership Service Providers (MSP) and Certificate Authorities (CA) to identify and authenticate lab members, by issuing them a signed certificate from a CA recognized by the consortium members, in our case, we propose that laboratories act as CA and MSP for their respective lab members and collaborators.

A lab member, detaining a signed certificate from a recognized CA, will be able to sign the engagement form by invoking the smart contract. Once the form is signed, a permanent transactions will be published on the blockchain indicating that the researcher has agreed to the good-use of the data.

In a later stage, when the researcher tries accessing the shared data, the authorization server will invoke an authorization smart contract, reading the ledger to check if the researcher have signed the engagement form or not. Invoking this smart contract on behalf of the researcher, means that the researcher is already well identified and has a signed certificate allowing them to invoke blockchain functionalities. The authorization smart contract will log the operation in a tamper-proof permanent transaction, allowing for a trusted audit and accountability, rooted on blockchain. [access log in the form of transactions on a decentralized ledger].