Unit - 5
Use Case 3
The blockchain is used for providing the security, immutability, transparency in financial sector.
The blockchain for government becomes a benefit to deliver tangible profits to the government clients.
The list of public sector blockchain application continues to grow in network.
Following are the benefits in blockchain for government:
- Building trust with citizen
- Protecting sensitive data
- Reducing costs and improving efficiency
The blockchain is the solution on transparency through decentralization.
It allows the participant parties to see and verify data in network.
The blockchain gives the services to the citizens for independent verification of government claims.
The government has large amount of hackers to steal the sensitive data.
Therefore blockchain becomes the solution for protecting the sensitive data on the network.
The data structure which is harden network security by reducing single point of failures risk.
The government becomes serious about the blockchain in cyber security department.
The government always manages the cost of budget where blockchain becomes helper of government.
The blockchain solutions could reduce the redundancy, streamline processes, decrease audit burden, increase security and ensures data integrity.
Trends of blockchain usage in Government
According to transparency and market research, the blockchain usage is expanding at a rapid pace all over the world.
The blockchain is used in Dubai to put 100% of their records pertaining to land registry.
The blockchain is used to validate property related government transaction in Republic of Georgia.
The blockchain is developed in some countries like Sweden, Honduras and others for enabling secured e- Governance.
In India the Andhra Pradesh becomes the first state who pilot the blockchain technology in two department and plans to deploy it across the administration.
Key takeaway:
The blockchain for government becomes a benefit to deliver tangible profits to the government clients.
Following are the benefits in blockchain for government:
- Building trust with citizen
- Protecting sensitive data
- Reducing costs and improving efficiency
(i) Digital identity
The blockchain developed from Distributed ledger technology to track bitcoin ownership.
The blockchain technology replace the traditional system with highly trusted mechanism of managing identities.
The blockchain provides greater control over their own identity.
The organization only can use with customer’s consent and there is no central entity would be able to compromise a consumer’s identity.
The blockchain provides the facility of identity to the users called as self-sovereign.
This is inherently unalterable and more secure than traditional identity system.
The self-sovereign used to verify the user’s identity and to remove need for password.
The identity and security are two complex issues for enterprise and government system.
The blockchain provides the solution for exceptional utility in solving issues of identity and digital system.
The digital identity arises organically because of the web.
The user fill the personal information on the web and the digital identity becomes automatically.
The digital identity can be pseudonymous which is linked to the device’s IP address.
The digital identity contains the username, password, drivers license number, online purchasing history, date of birth, online search activities and medical history, etc.
The blockchain self-sovereign identity allow user to
- Control the user’s identity
- Access and update the information
- Choose the information that need to be private
- Move the data
- Delete identity if user’s want
Following are the characteristics of self-sovereign identity:
Minimalistic – it discloses least amount of data needed for a task
Security – it provides the privacy and confidentiality
Control – it controls the user’s ID
Consent- the ID used when user agrees
Portability- it provides inter-operability
Persistent- the ID of user cannot be taken away from the user
Resilient- it provides the censorship and ID deletion operations.
Following figure represents the Biometric, behavioral, biographic can become the Person’s identity.
Fig. No. 1
(ii) Land records and other kinds of record keeping between government entities
The blockchain is the decentralized, distributed and digital network to record the information in a tamper proof with an automated way to enforce trust among different participant.
The blocks in blockchain are connected uniquely to the previous block via digital signature.
The blockchain in network captures, manipulates and builds the consensus among participants.
It makes a change to record without disturbing the previous records in the chain is not possible. Hence the information must be tamper proof.
There are various departments of government where the blockchain is used such as:
- Land management
- Digital identity
- Property records
- Scheme management
- Agriculture management
- Electronic health records
The land management is the registration of all the lands that are authorized by government geographical location.
The government has to keep records of all the land and the local bodies of government.
The blockchain provides the trust, transparency and accuracy in maintaining the land records.
It also helps to build a robust land management system.
The blockchain provides the reduction in cost of storing the physical records about the land property.
This will helps in time and promotes the transparency.
The seller and buyer meets at registration office in today’s scenario.
The physical documents in the presence of registrar and completes the land registration.
Following are some issues in land registration.
- Unclear land titles, leading to huge GDP lost
- Duplicate land records
- Land records are maintained in silos, updating and verifying the records is challenge
- Poor recording keeping, most of the dealing with inaccurate data
- Multiple land web portals and no of them provide single source of truth
Key takeaway:
The identity and security are two complex issues for enterprise and government system.
The blockchain provides the solution for exceptional utility in solving issues of identity and digital system.
The digital identity arises organically because of the web.
The land management is the registration of all the lands that are authorized by government geographical location.
(i) Public distribution system social welfare systems Blockchain Cryptography
The public distribution system is the system where the government create a supply chain to reach towards the public such as ration card is used by public to gain the glossary form government.
PDS involves the process of finding the farmers till distribution to ration card beneficiaries where different entities comes into chain like central and state agencies, milers, transporters, shop owners and then finally beneficiaries.
The entire supply chain process of finding the chain till disbursement can be the part of blockchain.
The farmer provides the food grain to the government under minimum support prize (MSP).
Milers identifies the collected food grain and then hull it to be returned to government.
The food grain then moved to the godown to be distributed to various block godown. This block godown gets distributed then to the fair price shops (FPS) for beneficiary distribution.
The farmer gets the payment under collected food grain MSP.
The government agencies allow the registered miler to collect the food grain.
The blockchain helps in payment and stock in PDS.
The blockchain can remove the delay in payment from the milers to the farmers.
As the milers are responsible for the collection and stock related transaction.
(ii) Privacy and Security on Blockchain
The government uses the electronics government (E-government) to deliver the public services to individuals and organization.
The blockchain is used to provide information and communication to public effectively, efficiently and transparently.
The E government is the complex system which need to be distributed over network.
The e government should be secure, privacy preserved and less failure.
The blockchain technology involves the high security and privacy preserving decentralized system to the government.
In this the government information is decentralized where no other third party involve in sharing of data.
The new data and existing data is stored in the sealed compartment of block in blockchain technology.
The blockchain in e government build the trust on information high security and privacy in public sectors.
Key takeaway:
The public distribution system is the system where the government create a supply chain to reach towards the public such as ration card is used by public to gain the glossary form government.
The blockchain is used to provide information and communication to public effectively, efficiently and transparently.
The E government is the complex system which need to be distributed over network.
References:
1. Mstering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies, by Andreas Antonopoulos
2. Blockchain by Melanie Swa, O’Reilly
3. Hyperledger Fabric - https://www.hyperledger.org/projects/fabric
4. Zero to Blockchain - An IBM Redbooks course, by Bob Dill, David Smits
