Self-sovereign proof of event attendance
Sector: Tertiary sector · Industry: Event management · Organisation: BlockchainLab Drenthe, Province of Drenthe, Interreg North Sea Region BLING · Maturity level: Pilot
As part of the European BLING project, BlockchainLab Drenthe developed a decentralised application for self-sovereign attendance records based on the IOTA Tangle. Participants could use a QR code to verify their attendance at events such as the North Sea Conference 2022 independently and with privacy safeguards. The proof of concept was tested at several events but did not progress to widespread production use.
Documentation status
- Project status: Pilot (as of 25 May 2022) — Field-tested proof of concept at several events; proposed as a replacement for paper lists, but no widespread operation verified.
- Evidence: Evidence medium
- Editorial review: pending
Description
Together with partners in the BLING project, BlockchainLab Drenthe demonstrated how event attendance can be documented in a tamper-proof manner without organisers having to keep central lists containing personal data. Participants independently register their attendance via a QR code scan, securing the proof directly on their device. This decentralised approach eliminates the data protection risks of traditional paper or Excel lists and simplifies the verification of continuing education obligations or conference attendance.
In the European Interreg project BLING, BlockchainLab Drenthe, together with the Province of Drenthe, developed a practical prototype for self-sovereign attendance documentation. The technical foundation is the IOTA Tangle, which enables fee-free transactions and cryptographically verifiable signatures. Instead of recording names and personal details in central organiser databases, visitors scan a specific QR code on-site and receive a cryptographic token as proof. The application was successfully field-tested, amongst others, at the North Sea Conference 2022. Although the system was proposed as a viable replacement for analogue attendance lists, it remained a field-tested proof of concept and has not yet been transitioned into widespread production.
Perspectives
B2B — organisations perspective
For conference organisers and organisations, the system reduces the administrative burden of managing sensitive attendee lists. It minimises legal risks regarding the General Data Protection Regulation, as no central registers of individuals need to be maintained.
Employees perspective
Staff at accreditation desks do not need to reconcile manual name lists or manage paper sheets. Employees who attend training sessions as visitors also receive tamper-proof proof for internal submission.
Benefits
General
- Complete data sovereignty on the part of the participants
- Avoidance of central targets for data leaks
- Faster on-site registration processing
B2B — organisations
- Reduction of compliance and liability risks under GDPR
- Reduced manual verification effort after the end of an event
Employees
- Direct digital possession of the training certificate
- No media disruptions caused by analogue attendee sheets
Challenges
General
- Requires compatible devices and acceptance among participants
- Lack of interfaces to established congress management systems
B2B — organisations
- Organisational transition effort from traditional registration methods
- Hitherto unproven scalability for large-scale events with tens of thousands of guests
Employees
- Familiarisation with unfamiliar mechanisms of cryptographic proofs
Technology foundation
The solution is based on the distributed ledger technology IOTA Tangle, which enables fee-free transactions and cryptographically secured proofs. This architecture is particularly suited to lightweight identity credentials and decentralised confirmations without central storage of personal profiles.
Implementation examples
Self-sovereign attendance piloting
Traditional paper lists and central databases for recording conference attendance entail significant data protection risks and require time-consuming manual post-processing.
As part of the BLING project, BlockchainLab Drenthe developed a decentralised application allowing participants to verify their conference attendance independently via QR code.
Together with the Province of Drenthe and the Interreg project BLING, BlockchainLab Drenthe implemented a self-sovereign attendance solution. The system used the IOTA Tangle to generate tamper-proof proofs without storing personal clear-text data on central servers. The trial was successfully conducted at selected dates, such as the North Sea Conference 2022, as a proof of concept, but did not progress into permanent production maturity.
Protecting privacy while simultaneously ensuring that attendance records cannot be forged or shared without authorisation.
Tags
IOTA, Self-Sovereign Identity, Attendance verification, Event management, Data protection