County looks to blockchain for records management

Riverside County, California, is exploring the use of a blockchain to streamline records management tasks.

The county’s primary goal is to convert paper-centric services into reliable, secure and private electronic operations with an interagency blockchain platform. A blockchain-based solution will make it easier for customers to remotely order and receive copies of important records, which they can verify on a public-facing website, the county said in a recent request for information.

For county employees, the solution will streamline the verification process for digital records, improve compliance through automated validation, increase data security, cut costs and help eliminate paperwork.

Officials have two use cases in mind, according to RFI. One would track and secure digital vital records and official copies of these documents. The second application uses blockchain to help store electronic documents, eliminate paper storage and increase trust.

Instead of putting all the records and documents on the blockchain, the county proposes to use blockchain as an authentication layer separate from business applications, making the solution “scalable, accessible and extensible for all aspects of county operations,” the RFI said. Only specifically defined metadata and the hash will reside on the blockchain, which then interfaces with the county’s LOB systems. Security would be improved because the blockchain platform would eliminate the need to maintain a large pool of sensitive data that could attract hackers, according to the RFI.

County offices will access the blockchain through application programming interfaces. The solution will also allow the county to own the rights to the ledger data, prevent other agencies from creating duplicate blockchain implementations and avoid vendor lock-in.

For vital records, the blockchain will act as a ledger for the electronic versions. For example, when a certified copy of a birth, death or marriage certificate is issued as a PDF, the blockchain will hash the PDF certified copy and record only the document’s hash and defined metadata in the ledger. To validate the PDF as an “authentic” certified copy, users will access an online verification portal where they upload the PDF document. The PDF’s hash is compared to the hash stored in the blockchain, and if they match, the document is authenticated and the result is displayed on the web page.

For other electronic records management, once the scanned documents are ingested into an agency’s business application, they will be hashed, and the hash stored on the blockchain along with relevant metadata. PDFs of these documents will be authenticated through an API that compares the retrieved document’s hash with the hash originally entered on the blockchain.

In neither use case would the blockchain store any personal information from the actual record or document. The official digital record is stored and managed in a centralized, trusted content management registry until it no longer needs to be retained. At that point, the mail processing system may delete the actual file.

When the solutions are up and running, the county will determine best practice to ensure the digital documents’ creation, revision, distribution and verification in order to reduce the risk of fraud. It envisions other counties will want to take advantage of the solution by leveraging Riverside County’s contract.

“This solution aims to bypass the generation and/or storage of physical paper records and use technology to facilitate a fully digital registration process to fulfill customer requests and electronic storage of electronic records while protecting the documents’ authenticity and verifiable origin,” the RFI said. “This digital government transformation will improve our level of service to the public while safeguarding the assets we are charged with protecting,” the county said.