Electronic Regulation of Data Sharing and Processing Using Smart Ledger Technologies for Supply-Chain Security

Epiphaniou, Gregory, Pillai, Prashant, Bottarelli, Mirko, Al-Khateeb, Haider, Hammoudesh, Mohammad and Maple, Carsten (2020) Electronic Regulation of Data Sharing and Processing Using Smart Ledger Technologies for Supply-Chain Security. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 67 (4). pp. 1059-1073. ISSN 0018-9391

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Abstract

Traditional centralized data storage and processing solutions manifest limitations with regards to overall operational cost and the security and auditability of data. One of the biggest issues with existing solutions is the difficulty of keeping track of who has had access to the data and how the data may have changed over its lifetime; while providing a secure and easy-to-use mechanism to share the data between different users. The ability to electronically regulate data sharing within and across different organizational entities in the supply chain (SC) is an open issue that is only addressed partially by existing legal and regulatory compliance frameworks. In this article, we present Cydon, a decentralized data management platform that executes bespoke distributed applications utilizing a novel search and retrieve algorithm leveraging metadata attributes. Cydon utilizes a smart distributed ledger to offer an immutable audit trail and transaction history for all different levels of data access and modification within a SC and for all data flows within the environment. Results suggest that Cydon provides authorized and fast access to secure distributed data, avoids single points of failure by securely distributing encrypted data across different nodes while maintains an “always-on” chain of custody.