Colorado Passes Bill Advocating Blockchain For Gov’t Data Protection And Cyber Security

Colorado Passes Bill Advocating Blockchain For
Gov’t Data Protection And Cyber Security

By Marie Huillet • 9 May 2018

The Colorado Senate passed a bill on May 7 that involves using blockchain tech for government record keeping and cyber security.
Senate Bill (SB) 18-086 requires the governor’s office of information technology
(OIT), the department of state, and the department of regulatory agencies to
consider using encryption techniques and blockchain tech in order to protect
confidential state records from criminal, unauthorized, or inadvertent manipulation
or theft.

The bill outlines threats to government data that blockchain could potentially
mitigate:

“In 2017, the cyber threat to the Colorado government included six to eight
million attempted attacks per day [...] There are increasing threats to the theft of
[...] information within government data [and to] networks. [...]The expanded
use of distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchains, may offer
transformative improvements to data security, accountability, transparency and
safety across dispersed state departments and jurisdictions.”
State departments will now be required to “annually assess” the data systems of
each public agency under their jurisdiction for the benefits and costs of adopting
blockchain technologies.

SB 18-086 also encourages institutions of higher education to include blockchain
technologies within their curricula and research activities.
The bill notes that blockchain technologies offer unique solutions for the
connection of society, technology, and finances by “supporting the mapping of
human action to transactions performed on the internet,” while maintaining their
privacy.

Individual US states are increasingly passing positive blockchain and
cryptocurrency-related legislation. In March, Tennessee passed a bill recognizing
the legal use of blockchain technology and smart contracts for electronic
transactions. A bill allowing corporations to hold and share data on a blockchain
was signed into Arizona state law in April. That same month, Arizona also passed a
bill that would allow state residents to pay their taxes with cryptocurrencies.