Blockchain for record keeping? UK government tries it out

The UK government is exploring the use of blockchain technology to improve record keeping to increase its transparency and accuracy.

In a post on the Government Digital Service (the UK Cabinet Office department) blog, technical architect Paul Downey explained that his team has been looking at recorders, how they are currently formatted and managed, and how they could potentially be improved through the use of blockchain.

The blog post details the different types of recorders currently maintained by the UK government, including open, closed and private recorders. It continues:

"We spent a lot of time looking at a lot of these lists and it became clear that there was a lot of variation in the way they were maintained and that was causing problems."

One of the problems is that when loggers change, there is no direct API to access existing loggers.

Data integrity

Downey went on to say that another more important issue is data integrity. Each recorder needs to have a reliable register, record and a method to update problematic data.

In his view, the perfect recorder should be able to prove that the data has not been tampered with, preserve the history of changes that have been made, and be open to independent review. Blockchain technology can provide a potential solution.

“We are aware of proof protocols such as blockchains, and the principles of how proofs can be distributed,” he wrote.

It is reported that the proposal has received initial support from the UK digital currency community.

A spokesperson for the UK Digital Currency Association praised the UK government’s spirit of exploration. They went on to say that there is no better way to achieve a public record than blockchain, which can be used to record public data and is transparent, with applications such as land title registration and licensed registration of pub owners.

The spokesperson concluded:

“In developing countries, blockchain is necessary for systematizing ownership, while in developed countries, it is about access efficiency and ease of use.”

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