SHARCS – Selective Sharing Of Accredited Solid Pod Data

In this newsletter, we are excited to delve deeper into the SHARCS project and discuss its significance for the digital future of everyone involved.

Innovation has always been the driving force behind our company, and it’s only natural for it to be one of our core values. Our vision has always been, “Fully digital business interactions will make the world a better place.”

SHARCS embodies this vision by combining several technologies we have developed over the past decade, paving the way for fully digital business interactions that prioritize privacy, security, and information authentication.

We have previously worked on numerous innovation projects, often funded by VLAIO – Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship, such as:

1. DocShifter: The world’s most versatile format conversion solution, now a successful spin-out with five of the top ten pharmaceutical companies as customers.
2. DocCex: A continuous training solution featuring “Model voting” for automated document classification and extraction.

With SHARCS, many of our past innovations will be incorporated into future solutions as well.

So, what exactly is SHARCS?

SHARCS is a collaborative project involving enhansa, karamel, TrustBuilder, Randstad Group Belgium, and Het Vlaams Datanutsbedrijf.

Its objective is to create a demonstrator project that implements the following principles:

• Integration with Identity Management
• Information sharing (primarily data) via a mobile wallet (SOLID POD in this case)
• Fetching information from a digital vault (Authentic Source)
• Minimizing the data that needs to be shared
• Implementing a Clearing House for interactions
• Accrediting the data by the receiving party

The project also aims to explore potential business models and their alignment with emerging European regulations such as the revised eIDAS Regulation, Data Act, Digital Services Act, and Common European Data Spaces.

To illustrate the project’s purpose and its connection to the direction all European organizations and businesses are moving toward, consider the following image.

Starting on the left with the Digital Vault or Authentic Source:

1. Our Docbyte platform serves as an authentic source (Digital Vault). However, users typically share data, not entire documents. This necessitates the following steps: Data Extraction and Data Minimization.
2. A user can log in to their wallet using the Identity Provider, such as the national eID, and connect to information providers with an authentic source.
3. The user can share information with a receiving party, like a new employer, and select the information to share.
4. The receiving party can verify the authenticity of the data through an Attribute Attestation service.

With SHARCS, in just a few years, individuals will be able to share authenticated information, while the receiving party will only obtain the necessary data, ensuring privacy and security for all parties involved.