Article by Pokere Paewai: “A new decentralised data storage network will put Māori data in Māori hands with the goal of ensuring Māori sovereignty doesn’t “stop at the server door”.
Designed by Te Kāhui Raraunga, Te Pā Tūwatawata will be available to marae, hapū, iwi or other organisations who wish to store their data within the protection of the Pā.
Principal advisor Erena Mikaere said it was a commercial storage service designed specifically to meet the needs of iwi Māori, hapū and marae.
The project was built on open source technology and led by Māori scientists, Māori engineers and grounded in tikanga Māori, she said.
“Central to everything from its architecture, to its initial conceptions, to the values that drive it, and then also to our customer service delivery, it’s really about doing things in a very Māori way, based on a Te Ao Māori worldview. And so to that end, we didn’t just want to offer like an automated store with us and push this button and register your name and company and here’s the invoice type of style. It starts with a conversation, it starts with a kōrero, like all good things. And so that means that we can provide them with a really tailored service.”
Te Pā Tūwatawata provides end-to-end encryption of data, both in transit and at rest, which Mikaere said would mean only the group who submitted the data to the platform would have the “keys” required to decrypt it.
“What it does is it provides a safe place for some of our data that we might consider, or that whānau and hapū, iwi might consider are some of our most sensitive sets of mātauranga. It provides a way in which we can protect that and ensure extra restriction, say over another data set, which perhaps isn’t as sensitive.”..(More)”.
