Blockchain-based Data Provenance for the Internet of Things
This addresses the need for trustworthy data in IoT applications, but it is incremental as it builds on existing blockchain and data provenance solutions.
The paper tackles the problem of ensuring trust in data from IoT devices by proposing a generic blockchain-based data provenance framework, resulting in a conceptual layered architecture and a proof-of-concept implementation using Ethereum smart contracts that enables simplified adoption for various IoT use cases.
As more and more applications and services depend on data collected and provided by Internet of Things (IoT) devices, it is of importance that such data can be trusted. Data provenance solutions together with blockchain technology are one way to make data more trustworthy. However, current solutions do not address the heterogeneous nature of IoT applications and their data. In this work, we identify functional and non-functional requirements for a generic IoT data provenance framework, and conceptualise the framework as a layered architecture. Using a proof-of-concept implementation based on Ethereum smart contracts, data provenance can be realised for a wide range of IoT use cases. Benefits of a generic framework include simplified adoption and a more rapid implementation of data provenance for the IoT.