The Immutability Conundrum: Reconciling GDPR Data Subject Rights with Blockchain Architecture in a Borderless and Decentralized Digital Economy

Abstract

This paper examines the complex and evolving relationship between blockchain technology and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), focusing on the fundamental tension between blockchain’s immutability and the data protection rights of individuals. While blockchain offers transformative advantages such as decentralization, transparency, security, and trustless verification, its core architectural feature—immutability—poses significant challenges to compliance with key GDPR principles, particularly the right to erasure, rectification, and data minimization. The study critically analyzes how decentralized and borderless blockchain networks disrupt traditional legal frameworks that rely on identifiable data controllers and territorially bounded regulation. It explores the difficulties in assigning legal responsibility within distributed systems, as well as the complications arising from cross-border data transfers and jurisdictional ambiguities. Further, the paper evaluates emerging technical and regulatory responses aimed at reconciling these conflicts, including off-chain data storage models, encryption-based deletion (crypto-shredding), pseudonymization, and advanced privacy-preserving techniques such as zero-knowledge proofs. It also considers the role of privacy-by-design principles and the need for adaptive regulatory frameworks tailored to decentralized technologies. The paper concludes that the interaction between blockchain and GDPR represents a broader challenge in contemporary law: balancing technological innovation with the protection of fundamental rights. It argues for a coordinated, interdisciplinary approach involving legal scholars, policymakers, and technologists to develop flexible and forward-looking governance models capable of addressing the unique characteristics of decentralized digital ecosystems.