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The Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged as a disruptive technology in recent time. Due to a sharp rise in the deployment of IoT devices across the globe, the total amount of generated data reaching record highs every day. There is no denying that IoT devices with the data that they produce enhancing our day to day lives by bringing in innovative solutions. However, there is a darker side of this technology as it enables device manufacturers and service providers to retain this data that they can later use for several purposes, including targeted marketing. Unfortunately, not many people are aware of this data misuse by service providers. To address this issue, we propose a framework for the confidential handling of IoT data with Blockchain-based verification. We used a combination of Solid and Blockchain to accomplish this goal. Our experimental results show that the proposed approach is promising and has the potential to bring a considerable change in the IoT industry.

Goal: As the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2019/2020 unfolds, a COVID-19 ‘Immunity Passport’ has been mooted as a way to enable individuals to return back to work. While the quality of antibody testing, the avail- the ability of vaccines, and the likelihood of even attaining COVID-19 immunity continue to be researched, we address the issues involved in providing tamper-proof and privacy-preserving certification for test results and vaccinations. Methods: We developed a prototype mobile phone app and requisite decentralized server architecture that facilitates instant verification of tamper-proof test results. Personally identifiable information is only stored at the user’s discretion, and the app allows the end-user selectively to present only the specific test result with no other personal information revealed. The architecture, designed for scalability, relies upon (a) the 2019 World Wide Web Consortium standard called ‘Verifiable Credentials’, (b) Tim Berners-Lee’s decentralized personal data platform ‘Solid’, and (c) a Consortium Ethereum-based blockchain. Results: Our mobile phone app and decentralized server architecture enable the mixture of verifiability and privacy in a manner derived from public/private key pairs and digital signatures, generalized to avoid restrictive ownership of sensitive digital keys and/or data. Benchmark performance tests show it to scale linearly in the worst case, as significant processing is done locally on each app. For the test certificate Holder, Issuer (e.g. healthcare staff, pharmacy) and Verifier (e.g. employer), it is ‘just another app’ which takes only minutes to use. Conclusions: The app and decentralized server architecture offer a prototype proof of concept that is readily scalable, applicable generically, and in effect ‘waiting in the wings’ for the biological issues, plus key ethical issues raised in the discussion section, to be resolved.

Over-centralisation of data leads to tampering and sharing user information without the consent of the owners. This problem has been studied extensively in recent times providing separate solutions involving distributed storage, Blockchain technology and Solid Pods. Individually these solutions are not sufficient to build realistic applications in a decentralised environment; however, a combination of them can effectively provide more powerful and useful use-cases. In this paper, we propose the methods of combining Solid Pods and distributed ledgers in introducing complete decentralisation of data with total user-control, keeping the integrity of the stored information intact through Blockchain-based verification. We demonstrated multiple configurations of our solutions, offering several new use-cases in various sectors. These configurations introduce new dimensions on the Web and mobile applications’ data storage that developers can benefit from building Distributed Applications (DApps) in a complete decentralised environment.

Institutions in the current educational landscape op- erate independently. They exhibit reluctance in sharing their teaching and qualifications with others due to the fear of dam- aging individuality. This practice, however, is counterproductive for the students as they suffer from various difficulties and get deprived of certain benefits. In this paper, we explore the possibility of finding a solution to this deadlock. We argue that Blockchain-based decentralisation can offer a passageway where educational institutions get to keep their individuality but participate in collaborations to help overcome the problems students undergo. Our principal contribution in this paper is a conceptual educational landscape to show how institutions could potentially manage record-keeping, credential verifications, and continued career support in a decentralised environment.

Decentralised data solutions bring their own sets of capabilities, requirements and issues not necessarily present in centralised solutions. In order to compare the properties of different approaches or tools for management of decentralised data, it is important to have a common evaluation framework. We present a set of dimensions relevant to data management in decentralised contexts and use them to define principles extending the FAIR framework, initially developed for open research data. By characterising a range of different data solutions or approaches by how TRusted, Autonomous, Distributed and dEcentralised, in addition to how Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, they are, we show that our FAIR TRADE framework is useful for describing and evaluating the management of decentralised data solutions, and aim to contribute to the development of best practice in a developing field.

Decentralised data solutions bring their own sets of capabilities, requirements and issues not necessarily present in centralised solutions. In order to compare the properties of different approaches or tools for management of decentralised data, it is important to have a common evaluation framework. We present a set of dimensions relevant to data management in decentralised contexts and use them to define principles extending the FAIR framework, initially developed for open research data. By characterising a range of different data solutions or approaches by how TRusted, Autonomous, Distributed and dEcentralised, in addition to how Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, they are, we show that our FAIR TRADE framework is useful for describing and evaluating the management of decentralised data solutions, and aim to contribute to the development of best practice in a developing field.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged as a disruptive technology in recent time. Due to a sharp rise in the deployment of IoT devices across the globe, the total amount of generated data reaching record highs every day. There is no denying that IoT devices with the data that they produce enhancing our day to day lives by bringing in innovative solutions. However, there is a darker side of this technology as it enables device manufacturers and service providers to retain this data that they can later use for several purposes, including targeted marketing. Unfortunately, not many people are aware of this data misuse by service providers. To address this issue, we propose a framework for the confidential handling of IoT data with Blockchain-based verification. We used a combination of Solid and Blockchain to accomplish this goal. Our experimental results show that the proposed approach is promising and has the potential to bring a considerable change in the IoT industry.

Institutions in the current educational landscape op- erate independently. They exhibit reluctance in sharing their teaching and qualifications with others due to the fear of dam- aging individuality. This practice, however, is counterproductive for the students as they suffer from various difficulties and get deprived of certain benefits. In this paper, we explore the possibility of finding a solution to this deadlock. We argue that Blockchain-based decentralisation can offer a passageway where educational institutions get to keep their individuality but participate in collaborations to help overcome the problems students undergo. Our principal contribution in this paper is a conceptual educational landscape to show how institutions could potentially manage record-keeping, credential verifications, and continued career support in a decentralised environment.

Over-centralisation of data leads to tampering and sharing user information without the consent of the owners. This problem has been studied extensively in recent times providing separate solutions involving distributed storage, Blockchain technology and Solid Pods. Individually these solutions are not sufficient to build realistic applications in a decentralised environment; however, a combination of them can effectively provide more powerful and useful use-cases. In this paper, we propose the methods of combining Solid Pods and distributed ledgers in introducing complete decentralisation of data with total user-control, keeping the integrity of the stored information intact through Blockchain-based verification. We demonstrated multiple configurations of our solutions, offering several new use-cases in various sectors. These configurations introduce new dimensions on the Web and mobile applications’ data storage that developers can benefit from building Distributed Applications (DApps) in a complete decentralised environment.

Goal: As the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2019/2020 unfolds, a COVID-19 ‘Immunity Passport’ has been mooted as a way to enable individuals to return back to work. While the quality of antibody testing, the avail- the ability of vaccines, and the likelihood of even attaining COVID-19 immunity continue to be researched, we address the issues involved in providing tamper-proof and privacy-preserving certification for test results and vaccinations. Methods: We developed a prototype mobile phone app and requisite decentralized server architecture that facilitates instant verification of tamper-proof test results. Personally identifiable information is only stored at the user’s discretion, and the app allows the end-user selectively to present only the specific test result with no other personal information revealed. The architecture, designed for scalability, relies upon (a) the 2019 World Wide Web Consortium standard called ‘Verifiable Credentials’, (b) Tim Berners-Lee’s decentralized personal data platform ‘Solid’, and (c) a Consortium Ethereum-based blockchain. Results: Our mobile phone app and decentralized server architecture enable the mixture of verifiability and privacy in a manner derived from public/private key pairs and digital signatures, generalized to avoid restrictive ownership of sensitive digital keys and/or data. Benchmark performance tests show it to scale linearly in the worst case, as significant processing is done locally on each app. For the test certificate Holder, Issuer (e.g. healthcare staff, pharmacy) and Verifier (e.g. employer), it is ‘just another app’ which takes only minutes to use. Conclusions: The app and decentralized server architecture offer a prototype proof of concept that is readily scalable, applicable generically, and in effect ‘waiting in the wings’ for the biological issues, plus key ethical issues raised in the discussion section, to be resolved.

Safety in school transport is a critical issue which involves children who are the most vulnerable users of it. On an average 973 trips are made per person in a year, out of which 105 are on school runs. In the United Kingdom (UK) alone, 1218 children were injured in 381 coach crashes between 2005 and 2016. Driver errors or technical faults in vehicles were the most commonly reported contributory factors for coach accidents. Coaches are considered as the safest mode of transport for children, but coach accidents result in a high number of fatalities per accident as coaches carry more children compared to any other means of school transport. There are more than 24000 schools in England alone and each school makes at least two field trips per year, which is equivalent to 48000+ trips. Schools in the UK rely on coach operators to provide vehicles for short and long school trips. In the UK there are strict regulations on operator’s compliance with the government safety regulations. In last year alone, 78 coach operators’ licenses have been revoked without public inquiries in the UK due to operator’s non-compliance. Though the government has strict safety regulations, accidents are still happening. Most of the existing literature has focused on economical and shortest routes to transport children, but they do not consider the safety aspects of the coach operators, coaches and the drivers in terms of compliance with the government safety regulations. Proper selection of coach operator, coach and driver can considerably mitigate safety risks for school transport. Only limited studies have examined safety of children travelling by coaches in the UK. This research involves a thorough analysis of the existing literature, national accident statistics, government policies, and traffic commissioner’s report. Two surveys were conducted with stakeholders (parents, school headmasters, coach operators, coach drivers, council transport officers and road safety analysts) to identify s