Blockchain for Location Proving

Blockchain is a topic that has gained notoriety in recent years in relation to its use in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which has led to an extensive research of its potential applications. Many different fields and businesses have considered adopting it to transform their processes towards a more distributed, decentralized approach. This thesis aims to analyze the application of blockchain systems to Location Base Services (LSBs), in particular to prove the truthfulness of the location of their users. In some cases, such as location-based games, a user's self declared position is not enough, since it could be forged at their own convenience. Solutions to this problem are usually based on confiding on a single entity to do the checking and certification of the position for every single user. A blockchain system can instead provide decentralization and is also able to maintain a better degree of privacy, removing the requirement of some entity continuously tracking the user’s location. A design is proposed employing the permissioned blockchain platform: Hyperledger Fabric. It is directed to businesses which can cooperate for maintaining a record of the visits of customers to their facilities and offering them benefits for opting in the service. As an incentive they can access anonymized data about their clientele and their habits. In this scenario, the strengths of the solution are the relatively simple requirements of implementations compared to other Proof of Location systems and the existence of incentives to every participating party.