Ever since its arrival, blockchain as a technology has changed the entire landscape of multiple industries. From Fintech to healthcare to logistics, all of them have gone under exceptional digital transformation due to Blockchain. The question this raises is “What can Blockchain do for Public Sector, mainly governments?”.
By default, most government digital initiatives provide open data, information that is publicly available for consumption by its users i.e. its citizens. This information can also be data the government services collect and manage authoritatively in form of various registries.
Most government around the globe, irrespective of how big or small maintain registries for the following data type:
- Civil Registry: To keep a record of its citizens significant life events like birth, marriage, death, etc.
- Land Registry: To keep a record of and to track land ownerships across multiple generations or multiple entities.
- Motor Vehicle Registry: To keep a record of automobile registration, including ownership, buying and selling and theft.
Apart from these most common form of registries, most governments also provide some open source data through its archives and legacy databases. Despite their best efforts, the current methodology of storing data and agencies storing this data are not entirely reliable. In most cases, all data is stored in one single location and that too in an archaic and outdated system. A single point of failure can be detrimental to the entire system and has the potential to crash the entire ecosystem. In other cases, accessing relevant data can be extremely time consuming and tedious.
Recent studies have found that Blockchain as a technology can address most if not all the major concerns and challenges faced by government agencies. Some of the key issues that blockchain can solve are:
- Data Integrity: Since blockchain doesn’t allow for a central authority keeping and controlling all the data, validating nodes will all need to agree via the applied consensus mechanism to agree on a universal truth.
- Data Maintenance and Availability: With the data been stored using blockchain helps remove all major redundancies within the system, right from its core architecture. This also eliminates the scenario of a single point of failure.
- Interoperability: Since all data stored within blockchain (across multiple registries) will share the same infrastructure, the ease of access and referencing of data becomes easier.
- Reduced Latencies: Blockchain can result in faster data transfer by running localized nodes.
- Ease of Access: Using public blockchain, allows for greater reach as users can join the network independently.
- Immutability: This basic concept of blockchain can be a hurdle. By default, and by thee core nature, all transactions passed on a blockchain are immutable and cannot be deleted, this can lead to certain complex scenarios, where the judiciary with interject and pass orders for some details to be either deleted or hidden. Still, immutability mega slide can be an asset for government agencies dealing with industries that rely on supply chain (for example agriculture). In such cases, the immutability factor can enable complete tracking of provenance and assist with biosecurity. DLT can enhance the systems ability to track and trace movements or produce and consignments, thus eliminating risks of outbreaks and theft.
Apart from these, using blockchain can also help government agencies in provide more transparent processes to its citizens by getting rid of any and all intermediaries, especially in the case of voting, resourcing and procurements.
Studio Fintech, being a Blockchain and Fintech development specialist with expert knowledge in the various verticals of these industries and also in their various applications across several industries can help you create exceptional applications. We have the required understanding and expertise in extending blockchain application for the public sector and how it can be brought to use by various government organizations. To know more contact us.