ECB and Bank of Japan publish research on confidentiality and auditability in DLT environment

The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have conducted a joint research effort on how to balance confidentiality and auditability in a distributed ledger technology (DLT) environment. This collaboration marks the fourth phase of a joint project called Stella, which started in December 2016 and aims at exploring DLTs through conceptual studies and practical experimentation.

The fourth phase of the Stella project looks into the fundamental features of privacy-enhancing techniques (PETs) for ensuring confidentiality of transaction information. It takes different perspectives: accessibility of the necessary information, reliability of the obtained information and efficiency of the auditing process, to assess whether confidential transaction information could be audited effectively by an authorised entity in the DLT network. The outcomes of this research can be used as a starting point for choosing PETs and designing auditing processes for transactions in a financial market infrastructure based on DLT.

See Stela 4 leaflet and Stella 4 report for more details.