Purpose This paper aims to explore a paradoxical situation, asking whether it is possible to reconcile the immutable ledger known as blockchain with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), and more broadly privacy and data protection. Design/methodology/approach This paper combines doctrinal legal research examining the GDPR’s application and scope with case studies examining blockchain solutions from an archival theoretic perspective to answer several questions, including: What risks are blockchain solutions said to impose (or mitigate) for organizations dealing with data that is subject to the GDPR? What are the relationships between the GDPR principles and the principles of archival theory? How can these two sets of principles be aligned within a particular blockchain solution? How can archival principles be applied to blockchain solutions so that they support GDPR compliance? Findings This work will offer an initial exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of blockchain solutions for GDPR compliant information governance. It will present the disjunctures between GDPR requirements and some current blockchain solution designs and implementations, as well as discussing how solutions may be designed and implemented to support compliance. Immutability of information recorded on a blockchain is a differentiating positive feature of blockchain technology from the perspective of trusted exchanges of value (e.g. cryptocurrencies) but potentially places organizations at risk of non-compliance with GDPR if personally identifiable information cannot be removed. This work will aid understanding of how blockchain solutions should be designed to ensure compliance with GDPR, which could have significant practical implications for organizations looking to leverage the strengths of blockchain technology to meet their needs and strategic goals. Research limitations/implications Some aspects of the social layer of blockchain solutions, such as law and business procedures, are also well understood. Much less well understood is the data layer, and how it serves as an interface between the social and the technical in a sociotechnical system like blockchain. In addition to a need for more research about the data/records layer of blockchains and compliance, there is a need for more information governance professionals who can provide input on this layer, both to their organizations and other stakeholders. Practical implications Managing personal data will continue to be one of the most challenging, fraught issues for information governance moving forward; given the fairly broad scope of the GDPR, many organizations, including those outside of the EU, will have to manage personal data in compliance with the GDPR. Blockchain technology could play an important role in ensuring organizations have easily auditable, tamper-resistant, tamper-evident records to meet broader organizational needs and to comply with the GDPR. Social implications Because the GDPR professes to be technology-neutral, understanding its application to novel technologies such as blockchain provides an important window into the broader context of compliance in evolving information governance spaces. Originality/value The specific question of how GDPR will apply to blockchain information governance solutions is almost entirely novel. It has significance to the design and implementation of blockchain solutions for recordkeeping. It also provides insight into how well “technology-neutral” laws and regulations actually work when confronted with novel technologies and applications. This research will build upon significant bodies of work in both law and archival science to further understand information governance and compliance as we are shifting into the new GDPR world.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the breadth of the challenges and issues facing institutional repositories in academic libraries, based on a survey of academic librarians. Particularly, this study covers the challenges and barriers related to data management facing institutional repositories. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a survey method to identify the relative significance of major challenges facing institutional repositories across six dimensions, including: data, metadata, technological requirements, user needs, ethical concerns and administrative challenges. Findings The results of the survey reveal that academic librarians identify limited resources, including insufficient budget and staff, as the major factor preventing the development and/or deployment of services in institutional repositories. The study also highlights crucial challenges in different dimensions of institutional repositories, including the sheer amount of data, institutional support for metadata creation and the sensitivity of data. Originality/value This study is one of a few studies that comprehensively identified the variety of challenges that institutional repositories face in operating academic libraries with a focus on data management in institutional repositories. In this study, 37 types of challenges were identified in six dimensions of institutional repositories. More importantly, the significance of those challenges was assessed from the perspective of academic librarians involved in institutional repository services.

Blockchain is frequently claimed to be a democratizing technology. However, its relationship to both law and broader democratic institutions remains uncertain. One claim regarding blockchain's democratic potential is that it is radically transparent and can bring such transparency to existing systems of governance. This paper interrogates that claim in three different ways. Firstly, it examines blockchain technology against broader theories of transparency. Secondly, it examines the relationship between transparency and democracy, questioning how blockchain technologies could mediate that relationship. Finally, it examines how blockchain technologies could impact a particular exercise of transparency, freedom of information requests. This paper finds the relationship of transparency itself to democratic ideals is complex, contested and highly context‐dependent; the “democratizing” technological transparency built into blockchains could easily prove undemocratic in application. Blockchain technology cannot meet broader transparency goals without addressing political gatekeepers and the legal, social, and cultural needs that animate those goals.

This paper reports on end users' perspectives on the use of a blockchain solution for private and secure individual “omics” health data management and sharing. This solution is one output of a multidisciplinary project investigating the social, data, and technical issues surrounding application of blockchain technology in the context of personalized healthcare research. The project studies potential ethical, legal, social, and cognitive constraints of self-sovereign healthcare data management and sharing, and whether such constraints can be addressed through careful design of a blockchain solution.