Privacy-Preserving Technologies: Unlocking the Potential of Blockchain

Dear Colleagues,

The current internet model, dominated by centralized entities, poses significant privacy risks due to its control over user data and opaque consent processes. This centralization leads to issues such as data duplication, prolonged retention, excessive data collection, and a lack of traceability and accountability. Moreover, the challenge of balancing data accuracy with privacy, especially in areas such as machine learning and data sharing, remains unresolved. Blockchain technology emerges as a solution by decentralizing data management, enhancing privacy through secure, transparent transactions, and enabling user control over personal data. It addresses the centralization problem by enabling mechanisms for authentic, private data exchange and empowering users with tools for consent management, data provenance, and fair participation in the data economy. Blockchain's potential to decentralize trust and ensure data privacy presents a promising avenue to overcome the limitations of the current internet.

For this Special Issue, we invite contributions that delve into groundbreaking research and the latest developments within the field of blockchain for information security and privacy. We seek a diverse array of submissions, including theoretical research, empirical studies, and in-depth reviews and surveys, to foster a comprehensive understanding of blockchain's impact and potential in enhancing data security and privacy.

Potential submission topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Secure Multi-party Computation (SMPC);
• The security and privacy of IoT and Smart City systems;
• Blockchain and wireless sensor networks;
• Federated learning and privacy-preserving machine learning;
• Secure data management;
• Decentralized solutions for the IoT;
• Blockchain-enabled secure applications;
• Security and privacy in Decentralized Finance (DeFi);
• Blockchain-based solutions for privacy and data governance;
• Smart contracts for user privacy and data governance;
• Privacy-preserving data processing with Homomorphic Encryption (HE) or Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs);
• Decentralized data marketplaces;
• Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials (VCs).

Dr. Aleksandar Tošic
Dr. Niki Hrovatin
Dr. Jernej Vičič
Dr. Branko Kavšek
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• Blockchain
• IoT
• smart city
• wireless sensor networks
• privacy