Agenda:

• Work on "Trust and verification in a health research context" (was: Alice Consents to Health Research) and discuss implications for technologies sections in the report

Attending: Eve, Jeff S, Andrew, Thomas, John W, Matisse, Scott S, Jim, Adam, Domenico, John M, Colin "L"

The new title is a working title. And...now it's Alice participates in Bob's Research Study!

There's a bifurcation of PHI for healthcare and PHI for health research.

The biggest question: Is there a role for the blockchain? The three lightbulbs highlight the particular steps where this comes into play. Thomas notes there is a bit of a crisis of repeatability in research. Could that be addressed with the new technologies somehow? John suspects that this is where putting the protocols (the descriptions of the studies) themselves on the blockchain would be more productive, and this is where his mention of a "predecessor or stereotypical case" of Human Research Consent could encompass that solution. He points to https://clinicaltrials.gov.

John M has written up a use case on his blog that leverages the blockchain for blinded (lightly deidentified) identity, not for the consent per se, in a research context. Jeff comments that if hashing for pseudonymity is being suggested (yes), then the entire suite of technologies that constitute "blockchain" may not be needed.

One theme of blockchain application, therefore, is "identity proving". Another that we started with was "agreement proving" ??

So:

Do we have use case bundles that are related, and can we write them quickly and with their relatedness exposed? (whether that relation is hierarchy, mind map, or whatever) It appears so, yes. 

Does it make sense to think of problems blockchain purports to solve, in specific, as things like "proving identity", "proving of agreement status" (e.g. whether consent has currently been given) – or "proving an event"? (suggested in the chat), and "proving that conditions have been met" (smart contracts)?

Eve will reach out to Bart Suichies' erstwhile colleagues at the Philips Blockchain Lab to see if they have someone interested to join.

There's no doubt that today's notes are incomplete or – gasp! – even wrong in spots. Please correct in followup email.