IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2018 - 76
For theft coverage, the smart contract changes are triggered
manually or automatically (in this case, the electronic
device monitors the vehicle position and interacts with the
smart contract to record the change only when the vehicle
leaves or enters the area specified by the customer). GPS
coordinates are stored on the device/company's database.
▼ For theft, fire, and weather events coverage, the smart
contract stores the hash of pictures taken before coverage
activation, and pictures are stored on the device/company's database.
In general, in the Ethereum blockchain, transactions for
which users paid a higher gas are executed more quickly
than others. For example, on the Ethereum blockchain, Ether
transactions generally cost between US$0.001 and US$0.5
and are executed in fewer than 10 min (the cheaper ones)
or 15 s (the more expensive ones), respectively. In some
extraordinary situations, which are not under the control of
the user (e.g., in the case of a high number of transaction on
the network), transaction execution time could be longer.
Based on all of these elements, we decided to let the customer specify the amount he or she is willing to spend for a
transaction (hence, how fast the modification will be recorded) using the mobile app. Alternatively, to reduce latency, a
private blockchain connecting the insurance company and its
customers could be built. Insurance staff can check information related to the insurance contract at any time by reading
data from the smart contract and the electronic device's or
company's databases.
The following is a list of the functions defined in the smart
contract. In the devised architecture, the insurance smart contract is created by the insurance server. During creation, some
additional information is provided and stored on the contract,
such as the duration of the policy and the address of the electronic device installed on the vehicle (i.e., the policy's owner).
At the end of the creation process, an address is assigned to
the deployed smart contract for future interactions.
As soon as the customer makes an Ether transaction from
his or her personal wallet (providing funds to the smart contract), the activate() function is invoked. The function
identifies the sender of the request (i.e., the address of the
customer's wallet) and stores this information on the smart
contract as the financier of the policy and the recipient of
future refunds. In addition, the function also records the policy activation time. The distinction between the owner (whose
private keys are stored in the electronic device) and the financier (whose private keys are managed by the customer) has
been made to increase the security of the system since, in the
case of hacker attacks to the system, only the owner's wallet
(having a limited balance) would be compromised. If needed,
the customer can eventually send other Ethers during the policy's lifetime to provide additional funds to the smart contract
(e.g., in case the customer wants to pay for the policy on a
monthly basis).
Each time a coverage is changed, the changeState()
function is called. This function checks the validity of the
policy (e.g., if it is active and not expired) as well as the
▼
Many companies are currently
investigating blockchain technology and developing prototype
solutions in different sectors.
Depending on the type of coverage, different tasks are
performed. For passengers' coverage modification, the customer must select the number of passengers to be insured
against accidents, even though the electronic device subsequently performs a further check on the number of passengers onboard. Theft, fire, and weather events coverage can be
activated only after pictures of the vehicle have been taken
(to avoid fraud). The theft coverage can be programmed to be
automatically modified in certain areas. For weather events,
however, the customer can eventually inspect weather forecasts. The customer also can view the modification history
and the receipts of transactions made or ask for a refund of
unspent Ethers.
SMART CONTRACT
The smart contract is responsible for storing the state of a policy and recording changes to coverage. It can be used to certify changes as follows: when the customer wants to modify a
coverage, he or she sends a message (i.e., a transaction),
signed with the customer's private key, to the smart contract's
address. The smart contract receives the message, stores information on the coverage to be changed, and simultaneously
records a timestamp. The certification of a coverage change is
provided by
▼ the fact that the customer signed the message with a private key (certifying that the message was sent from the
customer's wallet)
▼ the timestamp assigned by the smart contract (guaranteeing that a change was made at a given time)
▼ the fact that blockchain transactions are public and cannot be deleted (everyone could inspect the history of coverage changes).
Since users sending a transaction have to pay (using
Ethers previously transferred to the electronic device) some
gas (a tax computed on the basis of the amount of requested
data stored on the blockchain or computational resources
required to run a smart contract's function), we decided to
limit the amount of data stored on the smart contract in the
following ways:
▼ For passengers' coverage, changes are recorded on the smart
contract when the number of passengers (detected by the
electronic device) varies or after a manual activation by the
customer (in case of conflicts between the number of passengers specified by the customer and the number retrieved by
the electronic device, the highest value is considered). Information related to the correct use of safety belts is stored on
the device database and replicated on the company's servers
(to have a backup copy in case the device is damaged).
76 IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine
^
july 2018
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