Secure Storage, Authentication and Access Control Mechanism for Digital Documents using Blockchain, IPFS and OAuth

Abstract

Verifying who we are is a very primary task to receive any basic service in this modern world. Furtherly the data that enhances what we are in terms of our financials, education, health etc. are very valuable not just for us but to a lot of service providers, as in your transaction history to Banks providing loans, medical history records to hospitals for better care, verified academic records to recruiters providing jobs etc. and in the same time, data leaks, data laundering, unauthorized access of such data can destroy us in the ways unimaginable especially in this digital era. We can see securing this data and making this available to trusted services while maintaining control very crucial. In this paper, we propose a secure and reliable way to store and manage access to personal data of an individual in such a way that the user decides what data to show, to whom and how long. This is achieved by synchrony of 3 technologies that ensure security, trust and control over the data namely InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) providing immutable storage and availability for data, Smart contracts on Consortium Blockchain to maintain a trusted record of user data and OAuth to accomplish authentication access control.