Governments are custodians of their citizens' most precious information – their Social Security numbers, their tax information, their votes, their identities. Now, a new technology is emerging that supports open government initiatives focused on unleashing innovation in the public sector. Using blockchain, governments can address the dual challenges of trust and transparency, and the need for data protection and privacy.
Citizens increasingly expect the same ease, efficiency and innovation from public services that they currently enjoy in the private sector. Conflicting data formats, longstanding interoperability challenges and a need to balance the benefits of openness against a need to protect privacy have made it difficult for governments to unleash the full potential of their data – until now.
Sweden is using the technology to test a land registry where property buyers and sellers, their banks and land registry authorities can all view and approve transactions on a blockchain in real time. Dubai has set the ambitious goal of running its entire government on blockchain by 2020, digitizing all public documents onto this ledger to speed and increase capacity for new transactions. Estonia has been heralded as the first government to embrace blockchain, initially with a focus on cybersecurity, but now also for citizen services like e-voting.
China put a ban on initial coin offerings (ICOs) and has been questioning the use of blockchain with respect to cryptocurrencies, but is more positive about its other, non-currency, use cases. Japan has sanctioned the use of bitcoin and is looking at the opportunity for its own digital currency while Venezuela recently launched a cryptocurrency in an attempt to circumvent financial blockades. The U.S. has convened a summit on the subject of blockchain, and the recent approval of the defense spending bill includes provisions for modernizing government technology specifically allowing for the exploration of blockchain.
Read more here...The blockchain is called as revolutionary for nothing. Blockchain will be the buzz for many years to come as this can be applied into many industries and businesses. Right now, governments have been looking to use it in its governance and delivery of the public services to the people so that congestion and corruption can be lessened if not totally avoided. This is just the tip of the iceberg for the blockchain technology...
