Data integrity protection for data spaces
Nikos Fotiou, George Xylomenos, Yannis Thomas · 2024
Data spaces are an emerging concept that allows intermediaries to facilitate data exchange among interested stakeholders. Often, these intermediaries are trusted to filter the relayed data items, e.g., in order to support query-based data access APIs, or to implement access control. In this paper, we explore and compare two approaches for protecting data against illegitimate tampering, balancing the need for data filtering and data integrity protection. We apply our concept in data spaces that serialize data objects using JSON-LD, e.g., data spaces that implement ETSI's NGSI-LD API, and we enable intermediaries to hide segments of the transmitted data, providing at the same time integrity verification proofs for the revealed portions. Both approaches are efficient, with minimal communication and computational overhead.