Exploring leading technologies

NAU21 believes that technology should and does play a major role in improving the lives of the world’s population. Focusing this premise on our reality, we have identified two technological areas (Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence) which enhance the simplification and automation of business processes with strong benefits for companies and their clients, when applied in a combined way.

As such, NAU21 has studied and investigated the application of Blockchain technology together with INESCTEC, namely in the exploitation of smart contracts in private networks. One of the native and unique characteristics of Blockchain technology – the immutability of information – promotes the subsequent verification and capacity to audit data, at the same time that it introduces enormous challenges, namely regarding the applicability of the RGPD standard.

In order to overcome this panorama, NAU21 created the SDAA – Smart Data Access and Authorisation – project, which aims at increasing the types of information that can be stored in the blockchain itself or made available in smart contracts, while also assuring the privacy of the information, and allowing the exercise of the right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’) without harming the immutability associated to the data chain in the blockchain.