System and methods for auditable data management

Inventors

Lam, Tak Wing • Ng, Kwok Fai • Wong, Tak Fuk

Assignees

Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute ASTRI

Abstract

Systems and methods which provide for auditable data are described. Data management systems of embodiments facilitate storage and management of various data (e.g., information regarding transactions, customers, infrastructure, geographic locations, medical records, etc.) for supporting data creation, manipulation, storing, and/or sharing by and among different parties. Users may create new and/or update data, digitally sign the data, and store the digital signature and data on immutable storage using data structures of a data management system. A data structure in which data and associated metadata is stored on immutable storage in association with a digital signature corresponding to the data and user may be used in providing data traceability and auditability. Snapshots of merged data may be implemented with respect to data having many updates to avoid delays in merging update data for queries for that data. A collaborative rating mechanism may provide trust levels with respect to the data.

Core Innovation

The invention provides an auditable data management system in which a data management platform stores a plurality of data records on immutable storage and stores a plurality of signature records on the same immutable storage. The data records include data records of type new comprising original data, data records of type update comprising update data for original or other update data, and data records of type rating comprising rating data with respect to original data or update data. Each signature record is associated with a corresponding data record and comprises a digital signature that associates the data record with a particular user entity using the data management system.

Trust levels are generated by the data management platform for the original data of the type new data records and the update data of the type update data records based upon the rating data of the type rating data records. A user device receives a query for requested data under management of the data management system, and the data management platform obtains the requested data from one or more data records of the plurality of data records from the immutable storage. The data management platform returns the requested data to the user device with corresponding one or more of the trust levels generated with respect to the one or more data records from which the requested data is obtained.

The system supports an update model where the update data is difference data representing differences between two data sets, and it supports query performance for heavily updated data by monitoring process time for merging update data and capturing a snapshot of the merged data when the process time exceeds a threshold time. The trust levels can be computed using a matrix operation, including multidimensionally based trust levels derived from a user rating matrix and a data rating matrix, with trust levels guiding the corresponding returned data in response to queries.

Claims Coverage

The patent includes three independent claims covering a method implemented by a data management platform, a method implemented from a user device perspective interacting with the platform, and a system with immutable storage and a platform configured to perform the trust-level generation and query response. Across the independent claims, the inventive core consists of immutable storage of typed data records and associated user-linked digital signatures, trust-level generation from rating-type records, and returning requested data annotated with corresponding trust levels.

Across the independent claims, the invention centers on immutable storage of typed data records and corresponding user-associated digital signature records, generating trust levels from rating-type records for original and update data, and returning queried data together with corresponding trust levels. The user-device independent claim further emphasizes providing the data record and signature record to immutable storage, while the system claim defines the platform and storage configuration to execute the same annotated query response.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications