World Economic Forum Launches ‘Blockchain Bill of Rights’

Named ‘The Presidio Principles,’ a Blockchain Bill of Rights was released today by the World Economic Forum.

“The blockchain ecosystem needed a baseline for designing applications that preserve the rights of users,” said Sheila Warren, Head of Blockchain and Data Policy, World Economic Forum. “During our council meeting, we realized we could help curb many of the mistakes and missteps seen so far if we were able to provide developers, governments and executives with a ‘Bill of Rights’ style document.”

These sixteen principles were developed in conjunction with the WEF’s Global Blockchain Council and a public comment period on GitHub open from 10 April 2020 to 5 May 2020:

A participant should have access to information that would enable them to:

• Understand how a service is operated, including potential risks of the service, availability of source code, and the rules
• and standards upon which it is based.
• Understand the potential risks and benefits of a service’s use of blockchain technology.
• Understand system performance expectations and where the responsibility for service delivery lies.
• Understand the rights and obligations of different participants in the system.

A participant should be able to:

• Create, manage, and independently store cryptographic secret keys.
• Manage consent of data stored in third-party systems.
• Port data between interoperable systems or parts of a system.
• Revoke consent for future data collection.
• Have access to information sufficient to facilitate system interoperability.
• Assess if their data is at risk through appropriate disclosure procedures, which may include, but are not limited to, an examination of audit results, certifications, or source code.
• Have their data protected in accordance with internationally recognized technical security standards.
• Limit data collection to that which is necessary and data use to the purpose for which it was provided.
• Verify – through third-party or self-created tools – that operations have been completed and confirmed in accordance with the system’s rules.
• Access information needed to: (a) understand the system’s governance and rules and (b) pursue effective recourse mechanisms.
• Opt-out of using applications that don’t treat data in accordance with internationally recognized governance and data protection standards.
• Rectify demonstrably false, inaccurate, or incomplete data when necessary.

The signatories include early adopters, including Protocol Labs (Filecoin), Deloitte Consulting, Consensys, World Food Programme, Coinshares, and more.

“As fiduciaries, it is our responsibility to act not only in the interest of our investors, but also in a manner that better aligns investor outcomes with the broader objectives of society,” said Meltem Demirors, Chief Strategy Officer, CoinShares. “By incorporating the Presidio Principles into our investment analysis, ownership policies, and disclosures, we will introduce a voluntary set of investment guidelines for professional asset managers allocating institutional capital into digital currencies and blockchain networks.”

The Forum is partnering with ecosystem leaders from Hyperledger and Ethereum, as well as the consulting and investor communities to issue specific “Guidance Documents” around how the principles can be implemented on a more tactical level. These will further help developers, governments, executives, corporate boards, international organizations and others implement the principles and take action now.

“Decentralized protocols are designed to enhance trust and security through transparency,” said Joseph Lubin, Founder of ConsenSys. “The Presidio Principles are a valuable next step for creating ecosystem-wide accountability to these goals. We hope all builders of Ethereum-based projects – and across the blockchain landscape – will sign on to demonstrate their commitment to the users of their systems and applications.”