[interview] David Manset

[interview] David Manset - "We are in the process of moving from a world in which data silos are processed for specific purposes, towards a more comprehensive, Big Data environment."

A method of encryption popularised by Bitcoin, the full extent of blockchain’s secrets has yet to be unveiled. According to David Manset, CEO of Gnúbila, a company that develops specialist software for the protection of sensitive data, blockchain could make it possible to manage access to healthcare data and exchanges of it between professionals and patients completely transparently, whilst safeguarding individual privacy and liberties. An interview with David Manset.


In France and Europe, new rules will soon apply to the hosting of personal healthcare data. Why are these changes necessary?
We are in the process of moving from a world in which data silos are processed for specific purposes, towards a more comprehensive, Big Data environment, with a larger number of sensors and an ever-increasing wealth of data sources. We are therefore going to be called upon to consent to our healthcare data being collected so that it can be analysed in the light of other data. The difficulty will be to ensure this is done ethically, to eliminate the “black box” effect. This is what we call the risk of using analytics to identify one section of the population, which has a negative impact on individual freedom of choice and risks generating data manipulation phenomena. So we need to know how far we can go and how we can protect people without hindering the development of our information system.

Is this where the concept of “informational self-determination” that underpins the new EU regulation (GDPR) comes from? What exactly does this mean?
Informational self-determination means that the service provider knows exactly what sort of sensitive data they are hosting and where it is stored, and entitles anyone to access, amend or erase it. The term “Privacy by Design” is also used, meaning that any emerging technology that uses personal data is expected to be designed to provide the highest level of data protection. The fact is that, currently, our information systems are not yet ready for this new regulation. Over the next two years, data hosting providers and solutions suppliers are going to have to rework their technology in order to comply with it.

You are putting forward the idea of using blockchain to keep healthcare data secure. What exactly would this entail?
Blockchain is an encryption protocol that makes it possible to manage transactions of digital objects between different stakeholders. Our gamble lies in suggesting that personal healthcare data can be represented electronically, and that transactions between doctors, hospitals and insurance companies can be made public and traced transparently and unambiguously. In practical terms, it involves a chain of signatures between transmitters and receivers, which avoids the need for centralisation. Each of the nodes of a network is accorded a level of trust, enabling it to independently validate transactions. In this way, we can set up an interoperable tracking system between different partners who have nothing to do with one another. So blockchain could become a kind of glue that binds stakeholders without any trust issues.

Could blockchain technology replace and eliminate data hosting providers?
Blockchain does not play the role of a data warehouse, just as a hospital server does not, and will in no way replace data hosting providers. It provides an effective way of managing transactions of digital objects.

Can you tell us about the MyHealth MyData project, which uses blockchain to provide secure access to healthcare data for researchers from various European hospitals?
The idea is to set up and roll out at EU level a register to collect anonymous consent and perform data transactions, which can be accessed at any time, from anywhere, by anyone. Imagine a catalogue that individuals, research groups, laboratories and healthcare professionals can use to easily find and exploit large volumes of data, safe in the knowledge that the patients have given their informed consent and that their privacy is guaranteed, regardless of their location or the complexity of the data and irrespective of the legislation that governs the data’s protection. Gnúbila’s aim is to develop this solid technological backbone, to pave the way for new projects using sensitive data.