Bitcoin Forum

As you may have heard this month data protection laws are changing which made me think about the Blockchain and storing personal data. I've always liked the idea of allowing people to implementing a voting system based on the Blockchain to avoid rigging of elections.

We know it happens and it's been in the news a few times. The Blockchain would solve most of the problems. However to be able for it to work you would need to store personal data within the Blockchain to make sure that no fake submissions have been made. I'll summaries the very basics of this concept:

1. A user registers that they will be voting
2. This is then stored on the Blockchain
3. The details of who they voted for isn't public information (As it's your right to vote for whoever you want and have it kept private)

This would prevent several problems:
1. Changing the result of someone's vote
2. Submitting a vote under someones name

Of course for this too be effective you need one way of identifying that the vote isn't just made up as anyone could essentially add a vote into the Blockchain.

I'm a little iffy on the technical details involving storing personal data on the Blockchain. My idea was that at the doors of the election center you would be required to submit that you will be voting today and including personal details such as name, address etc.

You would then be given a unique identifier which would then be sent when you submit your vote to confirm you've actually vote. I think this wouldn't be possible though due to the data protection act. I'm wondering if you had people willingly sign that they are willing to have their details recorded on the blockchain but not the result of their vote would this be allowed under data protection laws?

If not I would like if we could have a discussion and maybe present new ideas to the table. I think the Blockchain is the perfect answer to preventing corruption within the electorate system. However there's a few little issues which need to be ironed out first of all.

Voting for election with blockchain is difficult since we need to rely on 3rd party (such as government in this case) to ensure only eligible people can make a vote, only can vote once and can't create another "account".

But for your problem you mentioned, it can be solved by :
1. Require user to prove their identity is match by password or sign message with linked address/public key when user register which contain vote option.
2. Ensure people can run full nodes with open-source client to ensure the blockchain isn't redo by bad people for public permissioned/permissionless blockchain or 3rd party run several full nodes at different location for private blockchain.

In the end, the weakest security/link always human factor ::)

You couldn't store personal data on the Blockchain and for that reason the Blockchain isn't really suitable for a voting system.
1. This wouldn't work. An address/public key can be generated by anyone unless it's linked with a identity. If an identity is linked with an address then and is hosted on the Blockchain it would break data protection laws.

2. This would work. It would be in the general interest of the public to ensure that there's no corruption within the electorate system and would benefit from hosting nodes of their own to ensure this.

Blockchain has many uses but I'm afraid that the voting system just isn't going to work as you intend. First of all even if you could come up with solutions with the answers above you would then need to get it accepted by the government which I think is well away from their interests.

Voting is a feature I'd like to see developed.
Property records such as recorded deeds.
I would really like to see an application on the blockchain that links a QR code (such as a tattoo) to medical records, living wills and  advanced directives.

How about DNA identification?

I am pretty sure DNA is identical, not the same for two person. Which means we get a unique perimeter like combining name and DOB. Now if that's possible then forget about all these regular data like Name, DOB, Addresses (may be a nationality needed). Take DNA sample of people and give them a unique identifier against each DNA.

May be possible in the near future.

A different approach! Although from my understanding of the above comments and my personal feelings is that the DNA would have to be hosted on the public blockchain which would obviously either be illegal because of data protection laws or people wouldn't want their DNA to be on a public ledger like that.

I've looked at some proposed projects utilizing the Blockchain for storing data and it looks like they'll be in a bit of trouble with the Data protection law.

I don't see any reason why this solution would require a blockchain.
You can create all of this with a P2P network with same benefits, without the costs of using a blockchain.

Seems like many people really want to use blockchain for every problem, but it isn't reasonable to do so.
Blockchain is really useful for really few problems, to be honest. Not ever decentralization needs a blockchain and it is costly to do so.

A detailed research might help to learn if that will really be illegal or not.

From my understanding, have a unique identifier like bitcoin address in a public ledger. When you need a KYC verification or any other verification - you will have a device (or anything like a tag may be) which will take your fingerprint or a way to identify (real time) that the unique identifier is actually your own. I guess WaBi (https://www.wacoin.io) could be an example of my idea.

Now question about if the people will want it or not?
I guess as long as my name, dob, bank details etc etc are hidden and an identifier which is just a string like bitcoin address - I would not mind. Only looking at the identifier will not give you an idea that who the person really is.

My first thought is how easy would it be to buy someone's vote and be able to verify that the person voted as promised. But Blockchain does not mean that the ledger has to be public. With Monero style proof you may be able to prove that something happened (vote) without knowing anything else.