Zcash Solves GDPR Compliance with Shielded Addresses and P4 Protocol

Primer on GDPR. The General Data Protection Regulation is the European Union's regulation protecting personal data and privacy; its goal is to return personal data to individuals within the European Economic Area.

Among EU and US companies, GDPR has been accepted as a new standard for data regulation-companies have paid a lot of attention to become compliant with these new rules.

With the GDPR we are building a European sovereignty on data.

Crypto advocates claim that blockchain will return data ownership, privacy, and identity back to users.

The right of erasure revolves around the concept that a user can request the deletion of personal data at any time.

Blockchain and GDPR. Unfortunately, the idea of immutability is in some ways at odds with GDPR. Fortunately, blockchains can be engineered in a way that is compliant, like what Hyperledger Fabric is doing in its new 1.4 private data collection or Zcash which is GDPR-compliant "By default."

These addresses are never at risk of leaking data in a post-compliance scenario because they neither store nor transmit identifiable information at any point in the transaction process.

The P4 Protocol was developed by Least Authority, the same company that Zcash grew out of, and utilizes shielded addresses as well as Tahoe-LAFS for data storage, further reaffirming that Zcash's shielded addresses are compliant.

Unlike Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Zcash's shielded addresses inherently prevent data leaks and data theft.

In Zcash, transactions do not transport identifiable information, eliminating the need to track data through the transaction process.