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EP-3850789-B1 - CONSENT PROVENANCE AND COMPLIANCE TRACKING OVER A COMPLEX CONSUMER DATA SUPPLY CHAIN USING BLOCKCHAIN DISTRIBUTED LEDGER

EP3850789B1EP 3850789 B1EP3850789 B1EP 3850789B1EP-3850789-B1

Inventors

  • HSY, JOE
  • LEUNG, Tsz Ling, Christina
  • LEBARON, MATT
  • COLEMAN, ARTHUR

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20190910

Claims (12)

  1. A distributed ledger system for tracking consumer consent data, comprising: a. a plurality of consent ledgers, wherein each of the plurality of consent ledgers is communicationally connected to at least one other of the plurality of consent ledgers, wherein each of the plurality of consent ledgers each contain a plurality of consumer consent data, each consent having a unique universal consent identifier, consent ID, the consent data including the consent ID and wherein each of the plurality of consent ledgers is configured to, upon receipt of consumer consent data, copy the consumer consent data to each of the other consent ledgers; b. a plurality of data transfer ledgers, wherein each of the plurality of data transfer ledgers is communicationally connected to at least one other of the plurality of data transfer ledgers, wherein each of the plurality of data transfer ledgers each contain a plurality of data transfer entries, and wherein each of the plurality of data transfer ledgers is configured to, upon receipt of a data transfer entry, copy the data transfer entry to each of the other data transfer ledgers, the data transfer entry containing the consent ID linking the data transfer entry to the consent data; c. a plurality of company servers, wherein each of the plurality of company servers is in communication with at least one of the plurality of consent ledgers and at least one of the plurality of data transfer ledgers; and, a data transfer API in communication with the plurality of company servers, configured to write a data transfer entry to one of the data transfer ledgers upon propagation of consumer data associated with the consent to one of the company servers, wherein a recipient of the consumer data can refer to the consent on the consent ledger via the consent ID.
  2. The distributed ledger system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of peer nodes, wherein one of the plurality of consent ledgers and one of the plurality of data transfer ledgers are implemented on each of the plurality of peer nodes.
  3. The distributed ledger system of claim 2, further comprising a consent application node implemented on a ledger server with at least one of the plurality of peer nodes, wherein the consent application node is configured to receive an original consumer consent message from one of the plurality of company servers that has collected original consumer data, and to write the consumer consent to the one of the plurality of consent ledgers on such one of the peer nodes with which the consent application node is in communication.
  4. The distributed ledger system of claim 3, further comprising a data transfer node implemented on a ledger server with at least one of the plurality of peer nodes, wherein the data transfer node is configured to receive data transfer data from one of the plurality of company servers that has received consumer data from another one of the plurality of company servers, and to write the data transfer data to one of the plurality of data transfer ledgers on such one of the peer nodes with which the data transfer node is in communication.
  5. The distributed ledger system of claim 4, further comprising a subscription node implemented on a ledger server with at least one of the plurality of peer nodes, wherein the subscription node is configured to receive a subscription request from at least one of the plurality of company servers, and to send consumer out data, consumer change data, or both to the subscribing one of the plurality of company servers in response to a change at one of the plurality of peer nodes.
  6. The distributed ledger system of claim 5, wherein the plurality of consumer consent data comprises a consent identifier, consent ID, uniquely corresponding with data pertaining to a particular consumer from a group of consumers.
  7. The distributed ledger system of claim 6, wherein the plurality of consumer consent data comprises transfer events.
  8. The distributed ledger system of claim 7, wherein the consumer consent data comprises no personally identifiable information, PII, concerning the consumer to whom the consumer consent data pertains.
  9. The distributed ledger system of claim 8, wherein the consent application node, the data transfer node, and the subscription node, or any combination of them, are implemented as application programming interfaces, APIs.
  10. A method for propagating consumer consents through a distributed ledger system comprising a plurality of peer nodes, comprising the method steps of: a. at an original data server, collecting an item of consumer data and a consumer consent; b. calling a first consent application programming interface, API, at one of the plurality of peer nodes to enter the consumer consent and a consumer identifier, consumer ID, in a consent ledger at such peer node; c. syncing the consumer consent and consumer ID in the consent ledger at such peer node with each of the other peer nodes; d. transferring the consumer data from the original data server to a transferee server; e. calling a first data transfer API at one of the peer nodes to enter data transfer data into a data transfer ledger at such peer node, the data transfer data containing the consumer ID; and f. syncing the data transfer data in the consent ledger at such peer node with each of the other peer nodes.
  11. The method of propagating consumer consents of claim 10, further comprising the steps of: a. transferring the consumer data from the transferee server to an advertising server; b. calling a second data transfer API at one of the plurality of peer nodes to enter data transfer data into a data transfer ledger at such peer node; and c. syncing the data transfer data in the consent ledger at such peer node with each of the other peer nodes.
  12. The method of propagating consumer consents of claim 11, further comprising the step of calling a third consent API at one of the plurality of peer nodes to retrieve the consumer consent from such node.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Currently, many companies-especially those in the marketing and advertising industry-obtain consumer data from external sources and also pass on consumer data to other companies for purposes such as personalizing ads. Much of this data does not come with any proof of explicit consumer consent or any link to the original point when the data was collected. Furthermore, such information typically does not contain proof of consent as it flows through a data supply chain. This makes it very difficult to comply with new privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within the European Union, because there is no simple means to determine the chain of custody (provenance) of a given piece of data. The manner in which consents are being stored may be different from company to company. This has two elements. The first is what consent data is maintained by a given company (its ontology); the second is the layout of that data; that is, its field names, field definitions, and data types. Because consents must be passed from company to company, the lack of standardization implies that every company must create a custom integration with every other company. Another problem with using consents is that, in a complex data supply chain, a consumer may unknowingly give a consent to a vendor through one channel for certain uses of his or her data, and give that same vendor a different set of uses for the same data. Thus, each company has to track its sources of consent and look for inconsistencies, which can be a very laborious and expensive process. A third problem is that the rules used by companies as to how they store their consents, and how they prioritize which consents have priority, differ from company to company. Thus, the ability to have a consistent view to a consumer's consent across the data supply chain is almost impossible. Due to these problems, companies currently resort to using legal protection by rewriting contracts with data suppliers that stipulate the data being sourced has consumer consent. The data supplier in turn rewrites its contracts for its own data suppliers and this happens all the way up the consumer data supply chain. Different industries, and even different parts of a single industry, are developing conflicting standards, protocols, and processes for handling consents. Conversely, regulations such as GDPR require that consumers must be able to invoke a SAR (Subject Access Request) against any company to not only get a copy of the data the company has about that consumer, but also to enable that consumer to "Opt Out" (i.e., remove and not use that data). Currently, companies provide opt-out support by creating internal suppression lists of the consumers that have opted out. There is no standard way to propagate the opt-outs to the original data source so that when the next update of consumer data arrives, that consumer's data will still exist. Meanwhile, consumers not only have to go to each company to ask for the "opt out," but there is currently no easy way for consumers to know which companies have their data so they do not know where to send the opt-out requests. There is no incentive system to create a traditional centralized clearinghouse of consents in order to solve the above problems. Document US 9635000 B1 discloses an identity management system (IDMS) based on the concept of peer-to-peer protocols and the public identities ledger. References mentioned in this background section are not admitted to be prior art with respect to the invention. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is disclosed by the appended claims. Like other blockchain systems, the value of the system follows the characteristics of the network effect phenomenon. The more companies that participate in the system (i.e., more companies register consents and data transfers into the ledgers), then the higher the value of the system. The decentralized nature of the system requires a consortium approach where participants share in the cost of running the decentralized nodes and also commit to registering consents and data transfers into the system. Using the invention, suppliers of consumer and other data will benefit because it greatly eases their compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR. The invention also benefits advertisers and marketers, who can be assured of the provenance of data that they are being provided as part of a marketing campaign. Finally, the invention benefits consumers because they may more easily monitor and control access to and use of their personal data. These and other features, objects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood from a consideration of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and appended claims in conjunction with the drawings as described following: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating the overall system arch