A cloud‐based solution for trustless indigenous data sovereignty: Protecting Māori biodiversity management data in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Indigenous peoples should be able to govern data about themselves, their territories, resources, and ways of life, collected by themselves or others. However, the progressive use of cloud computing for the geoweb raises data security and privacy concerns. We propose a complete and trustless approach for indigenous geospatial data sovereignty on the cloud by furnishing security functions at the core—the web browser. Geomasking permits sharing an anonymized dataset with less privileged users, while the original is protected and shared with sovereign data owners via public‐key encryption. The encrypted dataset's hash value is notarized on the blockchain for the verification of its authenticity when on the cloud. The application was designed for the protection of Biodiversity Management Areas stewarded by the Māori people in Aotearoa New Zealand. It enables diversified functions of geospatial data protection compared with previous works focusing on the cloud by solving data‐sharing problems without relying on a third party.

A Usable Encryption Solution for File-Based Geospatial Data within a Database File System

“…This has not only raised concerns around offshore data security and privacy but also the legal and privacy frameworks that the data are subject to. The MapSafe browserbased application [44] and the recent integration of its features in GeoNode [45], permit sovereign data owners to carry out geomasking, encryption, and blockchain notarisation security functions from within the browser by themselves. This furnishes a complete data sovereignty application for safeguarding and verifying geospatial datasets when shared via the cloud without reliance on a third party.…”