3 ms·

I imagine the most interesting and relevant parts of Fluree-based applications will be in the data apart from the PII, the data visible to anybody who wants to

I imagine the most interesting and relevant parts of Fluree-based applications will be in the data apart from the PII, the data visible to anybody who wants to view or update that info.

tripletao 8y ago
Yeah, but what's an application where this would be useful? What kind of other data would the database store, and for what purpose?
- nwatson 8y ago
  Hmmm ... * governments want to improve public health * parents in a given geographic region can opt-in on birth of a child to enroll their child in a longitudinal data-gathering regime * parents' and child's PII (personally identifiable information) is stored in a special private Fluree instance (or other DB), and each is assigned UIDs that can be public without disclosing their identity * the child's UID, along with basic demographic info (that can't be used to resolve their identity) is pushed to the public Fluree DB ... * some info, such as genetic profile, very specific outcomes of educational tests, etc., might be stored over time in a very secure DB not open to the public * basic measures of health, education, nutrition, could be stored publicly and available to researchers ... with more and more info stored over time * more info about a child's "history" that might be useful in correlating with positive / negative outcomes also might be stored publicly * public health researchers could analyze trends, etc., to determine what education and nutrition programs, environments, etc., contribute positively to good outcomes * public health and other researchers, such as medical, pharma, nutrition, etc., researchers, could use public data to find "cohorts" of children that might be suitable for studies ... and reach out in the system to families (whose identities will not be disclosed until appropriate) of those children to give them more info about why their child should become part of a study, and give them a chance to opt-in or contact researchers for more info That's just one very interesting application off the top of my head, and Fluree (I'm not associated), as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) who states they eventually plan to open-source all or much of their technology, might be a good venue in which to deploy such a system ... a system that would require high levels of confidentiality, trust, while still being open to the extent possible and advisable.
  - speedplane 8y ago
    Sorry, but I think this is one of the worst use-cases of a distributed database. Many government databases are, by definition, centralized, no matter what technology it uses. The record the government holds is the official record. As a result, copies of the original document are pretty valuables unless they are certified by a court/agency as being official. Governments should definite move towards more modern databases and technology, but given that they "are" the central database, I don't see the benefit of decentralized one.
  - tripletao 8y ago
    Leaving aside any questions of how much data you could actually make public without risk of depseudonymization, what benefit does this have over a 1998-vintage database-backed website run by the government? Like, the government licenses doctors and schools and such, so aren't they the central party controlling who can write to the database regardless?

I imagine the most interesting and relevant parts of Fluree-based applications will be in the data apart from the PII, the data visible to anybody who wants to view or update that info.

tripletao 8y ago

Yeah, but what's an application where this would be useful? What kind of other data would the database store, and for what purpose?

nwatson 8y ago
Hmmm ... * governments want to improve public health * parents in a given geographic region can opt-in on birth of a child to enroll their child in a longitudinal data-gathering regime * parents' and child's PII (personally identifiable information) is stored in a special private Fluree instance (or other DB), and each is assigned UIDs that can be public without disclosing their identity * the child's UID, along with basic demographic info (that can't be used to resolve their identity) is pushed to the public Fluree DB ... * some info, such as genetic profile, very specific outcomes of educational tests, etc., might be stored over time in a very secure DB not open to the public * basic measures of health, education, nutrition, could be stored publicly and available to researchers ... with more and more info stored over time * more info about a child's "history" that might be useful in correlating with positive / negative outcomes also might be stored publicly * public health researchers could analyze trends, etc., to determine what education and nutrition programs, environments, etc., contribute positively to good outcomes * public health and other researchers, such as medical, pharma, nutrition, etc., researchers, could use public data to find "cohorts" of children that might be suitable for studies ... and reach out in the system to families (whose identities will not be disclosed until appropriate) of those children to give them more info about why their child should become part of a study, and give them a chance to opt-in or contact researchers for more info That's just one very interesting application off the top of my head, and Fluree (I'm not associated), as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) who states they eventually plan to open-source all or much of their technology, might be a good venue in which to deploy such a system ... a system that would require high levels of confidentiality, trust, while still being open to the extent possible and advisable.
- speedplane 8y ago
  Sorry, but I think this is one of the worst use-cases of a distributed database. Many government databases are, by definition, centralized, no matter what technology it uses. The record the government holds is the official record. As a result, copies of the original document are pretty valuables unless they are certified by a court/agency as being official. Governments should definite move towards more modern databases and technology, but given that they "are" the central database, I don't see the benefit of decentralized one.
- tripletao 8y ago
  Leaving aside any questions of how much data you could actually make public without risk of depseudonymization, what benefit does this have over a 1998-vintage database-backed website run by the government? Like, the government licenses doctors and schools and such, so aren't they the central party controlling who can write to the database regardless?