A Hierarchical Blockchain System for Social Economy Services

Social economy actors have assisted the recovery from crises by providing innovative solutions that are aimed at strengthening public services to complement government action. Currently, the widespread use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by both citizens and organizations has changed society’s routine behavior, giving rise to the so-called information society. One of the major burdens of using big data for social problems is the lack of adequate data governance standards. Challenging and critical issues about big data include privacy and security for most of the social economy field of activities. Blockchain technology has attracted the attention of academic researchers and industries, which combines technologies like cryptography, end-to-end communication, and algorithms. Moreover, blockchain technology provides user anonymity to protect the privacy of users. We propose a hierarchical blockchain system for social economy services that can effectively protect the security and privacy of users and transmitted data. The proposed scheme was proven to ensure the legitimacy of all parties in the system and security of data and transactions, and blockchain technology and signcryption mechanisms were applied to achieve integrity, non-repudiation, and traceability. Security and performance analyses are also provided to prove that the proposed scheme achieved the above security concerns with efficiency.