Even in the hands of clinics, doctors, or researchers, your most sensitive health data should remain private, sovereign, and under your control.
In a live pilot across 30 European clinics, Billions Network (formerly Polygon ID) tech stack was used to protect sensitive mental health records, proving privacy at scale isn't just possible, it’s happening. The pilot, led by our partner BLOOCK, introduced DGUARD, a modular open-source framework designed to enable secure data sharing in one of the most sensitive arenas: mental healthcare.
Built on the Billions Network, DGUARD successfully protected patient records for individuals experiencing self-harm and eating disorders, while still enabling data-sharing between healthcare providers, researchers, and trusted institutions.
Want to see it in action? (Patient flow screens and live demo available from 0:39 in this video).
Why This Matters
Unlike conceptual roadmaps or isolated proofs of concept, this wasn’t a lab test. It was a real-world deployment, integrated with TopDoctors, i2Cat Foundation, and a network of clinics across Europe. And it worked.
Billions Network technology proved it can protect highly sensitive, regulated data, while preserving usability, trust, and compliance
How It Works (Billions’ Privacy Stack)
DGUARD, built using the Billions Network infrastructure, enforces strict privacy, verifiability, and auditability by design. Here's how:
- Self-Sovereign Consent System: Patients can transparently grant or revoke permission for data use via SSI-based authentication, keeping full control over their data.
- Privacy-Preserving Authentication Toolkit: Uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to enable anonymity with segmentation, meaning researchers can work with data patterns without ever seeing personal identities.
- Proxy Re-Encryption Scheme: Data remains encrypted. No matter where it’s stored or who’s handling it. Encryption and key rotation are built-in.
- Blockchain-Based Audit Trail: Every interaction is immutably recorded, offering full traceability and accountability. No more black boxes.
The system is completely open source, which means anyone can see how it works, contribute to it, and verify that it functions correctly.
“The more data health R&D teams can process, the faster they can advance in improving health and longevity. This European pilot demonstrates how the technology behind Billions Network allows users to retain sovereign ownership of their health and biological data.”
— Evin McMullen, CEO of Billions Network
A Scalable Future for Health Data
Mental health is just the beginning. The possibilities for secure, privacy-focused health data applications are vast. This same infrastructure can support:
- Genetic data as verifiable credentials
- Selective disclosure for clinical trials or insurance
R&D acceleration with privacy-compliant datasets
And it’s already GDPR-aligned, paving the way for wide adoption in healthcare systems worldwide.
The recent bankruptcy of 23andMe, who managed the genetic data of thousands of its customers, underscores the risks associated with centralized data control and the importance of user agency in health data management.
“Privacy-enhancing technologies play a crucial role in enabling patients to share medical records and health data with third parties driving faster drug development and medical research whilst minimizing the exposure of personally identifiable information. The Iden3 ZKP protocol addresses this need by enabling client-side user anonymization. Our SaaS platform complements this by providing seamless enterprise integration for privacy preserving identity management and secure information exchanges across data sharing processes” — Jordi Estapé, CPO at BLOOCK
A Glimpse Into the Future of Health Data
This European pilot isn’t just a healthcare success story, it’s a proof point that the zero knowledge privacy technology of Billions Network leveraged by BLOOCK’s DGUARD platform offers a promising, scalable path forward for secure, user-owned health data spaces.
Whether it’s patient data or AI agent reputations, our core premise remains the same: trust must be verifiable, privacy-preserving, and user-controlled.
About BLOOCK
BLOOCK is a SaaS company based in Barcelona; its cloud platform simplifies the integration of self-sovereign identity (SSI) and secure data sharing solutions, making it easier for institutions to adopt user-centric data models.
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