New partnership brings enterprise security to the decentralized web

NEWS RELEASE: New partnership brings enterprise security to the decentralized web

• Janeiro Digital and RSA partner to create secure solutions based on next-generation Solid decentralized web standards and protocols, where personal data is owned and controlled by end user
• Janeiro Digital’s XFORM architecture brings interoperability between existing data systems and Solid. 
• The RSA Verifiable Credentials service validates data’s integrity and authorship, providing the necessary trust to all parties.  

June 2 2021, Boston, MA USA. 

Janeiro Digital  and RSA Security have entered into a partnership to provide security and trust to decentralized web applications.  Janeiro Digital is an enterprise software company specializing in applications based on Solid decentralized architecture protocols. RSA, the leader in cybersecurity and risk management slutions, delivers enterprise levels of security and trust to these groundbreaking decentralized solutions. 

Transformative Technology

The decentralized web, and particularly the Solid web standards that enable it, promises to transform the way humans participate in the digital world.  Solid’s approach eliminates many of today’s problems, while fundamentally improving the way the web works for everyone going forward.

Solid is a set of free and open standards created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the original World Wide Web in 1989.  It extends and enhances the web in one critical way: with Solid, you assume control of your identity and your data.  This small but fundamental tweak inverts the web’s power structure, putting people – rather than organizations – in charge of their own digital existence.

Solid’s major innovation is the PODS, or personal online datastore.  Anything placed or saved there is completely private, and accessible only by you unless you choose to share it.  You can also have data stored in PODS by others on your behalf (per NHS example below), which you access like any Solid data.

Transformative Solutions

Through its XFORM data integration platform, Janeiro Digital is focused on creating enterprise-grade decentralized applications that seamlessly extend the existing technology architecture within government and large-scale enterprises. XFORM ensures data interoperability across all applications and ecosystems at scale. This allows organizations to meet rising consumer demand for data control and privacy, especially in sectors such as healthcare and financial services, and encourages the development of robust third-party developer ecosystems.

RSA’s Verifiable Credentials technology brings security and trust to Solid applications.  Since Solid users own and control their personal data, they can also modify it.  Many use cases will rely on the integrity of that data, so a method of assuring trust is required. Using cryptographic processes, RSA’s service verifies that any piece of data was created by whomever claims to have created it, and that it has not been modified.

Transforming Health Records at the UK National Health Service (NHS)

The Janeiro Digital / RSA model is now successfully powering some of the earliest iterations of the decentralized web. The healthcare industry has been an early adopter of the new model, with a major pilot at the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) in one of the most complex environments involving multiple parties – people living with dementia and their caregivers. The software alliance link patient records with hospital systems, families and other care providers.

Working closely with the NHS in Greater Manchester, Janeiro Digital developed a Solid integration with the region’s electronic health record (EHR) system.  The XFORM Health platform was used to collect and normalize patient data from across the many systems used in the NHS.  The combined data is distributed into individual patient PODS, with two-way communication to synchronize instances.  Because the PODS are owned by the patients, privacy compliance if instantly enhanced. And the data can be used in new and different ways with the Solid architecture. For examples, patients can connect fitness trackers, share information with insurers, or sign up to be alerted to pharmaceutical trials that target specific conditions.

Since NHS patients own the health records in their PODS, they can modify them.  You need trust that a patient, for example, hasn’t changed a diagnosis or added a prescription.  RSA’s Verifiable Credentials service does this by cryptographically verifying authorship and integrity, so that any party accessing the information can be confident in relying upon that data.

RSA / Janeiro Digital partnership

Commenting on the significance of the partnership, Jonathan Bingham, Janeiro Digital Co-founder and CEO said: “Collaborating with RSA, an organization with such strong, irrefutable heritage in data and cyber security is incredibly exciting. The decentralized web presents a critical opportunity to rethink and reimagine data-sharing, putting control firmly in the hands of individuals, for personal and collective benefit. XFORM is the connective tissue that brings together pods with existing data systems, and integration with RSA’s Verifiable Credentials creates trust in any information that is shared. The alliance of these two software platforms is fundamental to ensuring the integrity of information stored within a pod and it’s safe transfer.”

“RSA has always focused on making systems more trustworthy,” said Dr Zulfikar Ramzan, Chief Digital Officer, RSA. “We pioneered cryptographic algorithms that help secure the World Wide Web and the multifactor authentication (MFA) solutions that power millions of remote workers around the globe. As technologies like Solid and XFORM drive transformation to a decentralized web, RSA verifiable claims service will provide foundations to make these technologies more trustworthy, enabling us to reap the benefits.” 

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About Janeiro Digital:

Janeiro Digital was launched in 2009 by brothers Justin and Jonathan Bingham. Led by their mission to harness the decentralized web to address the need for greater personal data value and security, Janeiro Digital builds transformative solutions for the individual benefit as well as the collective.

 For over a decade, Janeiro Digital’s core business has supported large companies and institutions with digital transformation services. In 2019, Janeiro Digital began collaborating with Tim Berners-Lee, ‘Father of the world wide web’, writing the open-source standards for the decentralized web architecture Solid. Janeiro Digital’s CTO Justin Bingham co-authored the interoperability standard with Sir Tim. Justin and the team are also closely involved in the evolution of the Solid ecosystem, including data interoperability patterns, secure data boundaries, developer tooling, and frictionless end user experience. The company developed XFORM as a platform designed to provide interoperability for Solid within enterprise architectures – a bridge that sits between PODS and external enterprise systems.

The XFORM Health platform bridges the gap between existing IT systems running in organizations across the globe with personal health data stored in Personal Online Data Stores (PODS), effectively acting as a personal data exchange for clinical and patient generated data.

Over the past two years Janeiro Digital has successfully deployed XFORM within the NHS. There, these technologies provide a decentralized approach to recording and sharing data by integrating with existing ecosystems. This finally gives both clinicians and patients a unified record that will enable ultimate patient-centered care. Other pilot schemes and proof of concepts are being worked on with government and enterprise organizations.

Janeiro Digital partners with RSA, Inrupt, KPMG, Deloitte and Accenture. 

About RSA:

RSA, a leader in cybersecurity and risk management solutions, provides organizations with technology to address challenges across security, risk management and fraud prevention in the digital era. RSA solutions are designed to effectively detect and respond to advanced attacks; manage user access control; and reduce operational risk, fraud and cybercrime. RSA protects millions of users around the world and helps more than 90 percent of the Fortune 100 companies thrive and continuously adapt to transformational change.