Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1191618
12.12.19 10 INTERVIEW Gatekeeper of Europe's data MADANA is developing ways to help businesses use their customers' data, without compromising on security or privacy. BusinessToday spoke to Christian Junger, co- founder and CEO, who explained the story behind MADANA and what its goals are PAUL COCKS Tell us about MADANA. What made you decide to found the company, and what is the philosophy behind it? I have a longstanding interest in dis- tributed ledger technologies (the con- cept behind blockchain systems), and during my studies at the RWTH Aachen University I co-founded one of Germa- ny's first bitcoin and blockchain meet- up groups, to further explore their ex- citing potential. Whilst blockchain is a truly revolutionary concept, in my view it is just that – a concept and not a stand-alone technology with direct use cases. Blockchain should rather be used and implemented as backbone technol- ogy in different infrastructures. In Aachen, the idea behind MADANA – Market for Data Analysis – was born. MADANA aims to give back control of data to data producers whilst providing a secured and GDPR-compliant data transmission system. So, you mean that the aim is to help people retain control over their data, and to provide a viable commercial product that nevertheless keeps data secure: how exactly do you do that? e analysis process matches encrypt- ed datasets with encrypted algorithms. e analysis takes place within a trusted execution environment (TEE), which is a standard part of hardware chips present in all technological devices. It is mathematically proven that no party can take a look inside, and hence tam- per with, the analysis process. All of this is made possible through the combi- nation of our three main technological components: asymmetrical encryption, trusted execution environments and blockchain technology. In turn, our technological approach involves three groups of participants: • data producers (end consum- ers, devices, machines, etc.) • data analysis buyers (individu- als, companies, institutions) • what we call the plug-in pro- viders, who want access to the data for further analytic purposes (data scien- tists, analytics companies, etc.). e whole process is initiated when the data analysis buyer sends a request with a concrete offer for the insights that they need. is request alerts the data producers holding the required data and asks their consent to lend the data for analysis purposes. Once consent is given, the data, en- crypted by the data owner with a spe- cific private key, is transferred into our APE (Analysis Processing Entity) and matched with the algorithms from the plug-In providers. e matching, decryption and pro- cessing of data and the analytics scripts happen in a one-time set up enclave within TEEs – the tamper-proof envi- ronments I mentioned earlier. Once the analysis is complete, the whole enclave, including the raw data and analytics scripts, is destroyed. Only the insights, also in this case encrypted with the key of the buyer, are released to the buyer. Our technology can connect to any data silo, such as edge and cloud com- puting, or any kind of existing server. What we do is that on a metadata level we create "ontologies", which allow the plug-in providers to create algorithms. e algorithms, in turn, are used within our system to run secured analysis on encrypted data, without any need to ac- cess the raw data itself. Blockchain is used to ensure the se- curisation and encryption of most of the technical aspects , such as logging of processes, attestations of TEEs and more. However, we have an incentive aspect for the data producers, MADA- NA PAX, a cryptocurrency that we of- fer to data producers as a further secure method for financial transactions in our model. Personal data protection and proper reuse of data for businesses are at the core of the development of a digital single market. How can we make sure Europeans and European businesses have the confidence to invest in new technologies, expanding their uses in data-hungry fields like Internet of Things, connected cars, eGovernment and eHealth, knowing that their data will be kept safe? I believe that any company that deals with data needs to keep three priorities in mind: 1. Ensuring that the owners and producers of data retain control of it 2. Implementing systems for se- cure data analysis that are based on complete trust and without fraudulent loopholes 3. Creating fair and incen- tive-based digital economic spaces, which will in turn encourage customers to happily provide their data. What we offer at MADANA encom- passes all of these points and is appli- cable within a wideranging set of in- dustries. To see how it works, imagine the following scenario: a drug research laboratory needs sensitive research data from a competitor in order to make a breakthrough, using the data with an