The Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) has come out with a blueprint of blockchain technology for the banking sector. The institute has been working with government, banks and industry for building a blockchain that can serve as a common platform to launch varied applications.
The blueprint has suggested broad roadmap on adoption of the new technology in various business and organisational functions along with common protocols to ensure interoperability among different entities as there are no regulatory guidelines in place for adoption of blockchain in banks and financial institutions.
Currently, interoperability between different blockchain platforms is not well established. Common infrastructure and technology is a far superior approach to build a true ecosystem around blockchain technology, in the absence of which the stakeholders like corporates have to hook to different blockchain networks.
Releasing a white paper on blockchain technology, R Gandhi, former deputy governor, RBI, said that the banking and financial sector is experiencing cyber risks more because of the increased use of rapidly evolving, sophisticated, and complex technologies, wide use of third-party vendors, increased use of mobile technologies by customers, including the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the heightened cross-border information security threats.
Further, he said that data security and data privacy have become a vital point of discussion. There are two facets of data privacy – one is, data privacy in a commercial context and the other is in a democratic and human rights context. The general trend is that data privacy is a fundamental right of the individuals and any unconsented use by entities would result in heavy penalties.
Gandhi sought a solution for the problem of storage and access of biometric data. Technology has earlier found a solution for the security of data through the concept of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) by splitting the key into its public and private parts. He suggested for a split in biometric data into two parts, one the public part to be with the government, and the other, the private part remaining with the individual – the biometric data with the government will be incomplete until the private part is supplied by the individual.