Argentina’s Secretariat for Public Innovation Creates National Blockchain Committee – Commentary

committee
Guidelines
Comment

On 7 December 2022, the Secretariat for Public Innovation issued to the Prime Minister Resolution 17/2022, which establishes the national blockchain committee and approves the national guidelines for blockchain.

committee

The committee’s aim is to reduce costs and increase the transparency and efficiency of public services through the optimization of processes managed by the public sector, taking into account that transactions will have a higher level of security. In addition, the government believes that blockchain will facilitate citizens’ access to public information.

To achieve its goal, the committee will collaborate with public agencies that can contribute to the development of public policy and technological solutions based on blockchain. It will act as an interlocutor for the local ecosystem of this technology and promote the creation of pilot projects.

Guidelines

The guidelines describe the benefits of using blockchain technology and its possible applications. They establish two immediate areas of use that the government can benefit from:

• an audit – citizens will have easier access to government transactions, such as tenders, purchases, subsidies, certifications and awards. Currently, access is difficult due to the size and complexity of public structures. The use of blockchain technology will allow citizens to easily follow public procedures; and
• certification – the aim is to prevent forgery and fraud in the various documents and titles issued by the public administration, for example national identity cards or passports.

The guidelines also describe some of the most promising use cases of blockchain technology for the public sector:

• identity management – ​​public administration is an important source of information about citizens’ identities. The state administers all types of certificates that make it possible to identify citizens, including birth and death certificates. When relying on centralized certification authorities, identification systems are complex and expensive to manage. For this reason, administrations are already implementing citizen identification projects with the advantages and benefits of blockchain technology;
• notarization – the blockchain’s technical features, such as timestamping, data immutability and easy verifiability by the public, facilitate notarization. In the field of education, blockchain will enable institutions to issue reliable and immutable academic degrees or certificates in digital format. Bureaucratic processes will take less time using blockchain technology, as there would be no need to use paper, holographic signatures or stamps. Blockchain technology will also facilitate the authentication of documents, which can then be presented simultaneously in several cases where necessary;
• health – blockchain technology seeks to ensure the correct handling of medical data through an audit trail of how such data is used. Instead of storing medical records on the blockchain, the most common proposal is based on obtaining proof that guarantees the authenticity of each patient’s data, stored outside the blockchain;
• open authority and transparency – in the public sector, blockchain has the ability to make the data entered immutable and public. For example, the tender process between private companies and the public sector can be done with digitized documents and then uploaded to a blockchain network that guarantees the timeliness and accuracy of each element of the content. Any change made to the blockchain will not be valid. Citizens have access to information automatically, in real time, without having to wait for the data to be uploaded and/or standardized by the administration. Similarly, it would be possible to use smart contracts to streamline bureaucratic processes;
• smart cities – platforms responsible for managing smart cities based on blockchain can be a good solution to reduce integration and interoperability problems by offering greater transparency, security and robustness; and
• immutable content and publications – one of the biggest risks of the digital transformation is ensuring that content communicated electronically is original and has not been manipulated. Registering content or publications on a blockchain network will allow any user or citizen to check at any time whether a content is original (ie issued by a certification body, person or company). In addition, blockchain technology prevents the author from committing fraud by removing or replacing the registered content.

Finally, the guidelines establish the main principles on which the regulations for the development of blockchain technology must be based:

• identity – the regulations should focus on describing requirements for identity verification on a case-by-case basis to ensure the conditions that make an identity provider reliable;
• privacy – regulations should generate mechanisms capable of safeguarding the privacy of users in accordance with national regulations;
• security and provenance of data – regulations should establish systems that maximize the accuracy of the data exchanged on the blockchain to prevent all types of fraud; and
• governance (ie the right of all participants to know what resources are available) – regulations should require a governance structure that defines the roles and behaviors of participants and specifies the ways in which information is to be shared.

Comment

The use of blockchain technology is developing rapidly around the world and Argentina is no exception to that. For this reason, it is necessary for the states to regulate the business where it can be used. With the implementation of clear regimes, people will be able to benefit from all its benefits.

The fact that Argentina has created the National Blockchain Committee reflects the importance of the topic for the future. The approval of the National Guidelines on Blockchain is a good step for public agencies to start developing and investing in this type of technology.

For more information on this topic, please contact Josefina Pineiro or Mateo Darget at Ojam Bullrich Flanzbaum by telephone (+54 11 4549-4900) or e-mail ([email protected] or [email protected]). Ojam Bullrich Flanzbaum’s website can be accessed at www.ojambf.com.