Governments Implementing Blockchain To Reduce Complacency

A great way to avoid being reduced to poverty

Complacency is an offshoot trait that comes from the state of comfort that we achieve once we become familiar with a given environment or stimulus. A driver, for example, can be overly cautious in navigating a rugged terrain he is negotiating for the first time. He can be so calculating and, thus, would travel slow. Once the driver passes that same terrain over and over, he becomes more familiar with it and would drive a little faster. His built up confidence can make him complacent enough to ignore simple and basic safety rules to the compromise of his safety. I once heard a manager voicing out his observations concerning workplace employee output between contractual and regulars. Contractual employees would always put their best foot forward in doing their assigned jobs, knowing that not by doing so would jeopardize their stay in the company. But once they are hired and regularized, over time they would tend to become complacent because of the comforting thought that security of tenure brings them, the familiarity of the surrounding environment, and the developed mastery of the task with its predictable and routinary nature. But instead of a more efficient result, performances ironically are snail-paced, and results graded below quality. Processes and procedures consequently suffer from human error, along with health and safety policies being ignored. End-users are short ended with substandard service when complacency in the workplace becomes a hard habit to break.

Governments are historically conservative. Piles and piles of paperwork do still crowd the tables of offices and departments whose interrelation requires a paper needing authentication to be read, studied, recorded, stamped, and signed by numerous officers in charge in a maze of trails before coming out, in days, weeks, or years. The effort of governments to be transparent and safekeep sensitive data lends it a bureaucratic character, a system it cannot shake off. Complacency can easily set in.

Introducing Blockchain.

The invention of the blockchain technology as the backend infrastructure of any kind of business imaginable is being hailed as the greatest invention in contemporary history. Though only a very recent invention (2008) whose use cases are mostly in the financial world particularly bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, blockchain’s potential to disrupt incumbent systems in other sectors of society became widely talked about and now major entities have begun operating under the blockchain protocol. News comes out daily regarding its ease of use and the challenges that arise being it a nascent technology.

What keeps Governments from Adopting?

Blockchain technology, despite its disruptive popularity, has yet to reach a superstar status point of mass adoption before it can convince governments to follow suit. Until there is mainstream mass adoption until there are enough use cases to base from, and until problems and solutions plateau, governments, conservative as they are, would remain conveniently watching from the sides.

In one way or the other, the bureaucratic process of government has been working in their favor due to the massive data that need to be protected and secured. Human intervention in the processes sees to it that it is effectively and efficiently managed. The fearful scenario that the impending blockchain encroachment is the implementation of smart contracts. If smart contracts do away with human intervention, what would happen to the sea of people flooding every department and protected by law via security of tenure? That was the same thinking we had when the Internet and all its supporting technology came to disrupt our complacent lives. Fear was completely dispelled when our qualified worries did not materialize. The age of the internet made us more creative, improving our lives and made our work more fulfilling than ever. A Deloitte and Oxford collaboration that studied the impact of technology on jobs in the United Kingdom revealed that in the last 15 years, technology erased 800,000 jobs, but created 3.5 million new ones that required high skill and creativity.

Where to adopt Adoption.

As taxpayers, we deserve fast and efficient services that we know governments also dream of doing but cannot because of the entrenched systems and status quos. Bureaucracies are costly and waste a lot of people’s money every year. With with blockchain adoption, governments can study the possibilities of introducing them to service sectors that need it most, saving a lot from its coffers.

1.) Land and property registries.

This is a very complex sphere of property management, especially in buying and selling. A simple land deal can be overwhelming with all the physical paperwork and authentications it requires. Even legal documents can have mistakes. Blockchain technology can correct age-old errors and guarantee clean transactions in seconds using smart contracts. Only concerned parties can openly search and verify specified documents.

2.) Voting.

The political exercise can be more credible with blockchain keeping the elections transparent and free of fraud. Voting through blockchain ensures voters’ authentic virtual identity, and vote count results in real-time are impossible to alter.

3.) Taxes.

Blockchain transparency in smart contracts eliminates error and fraud and simplify tax filing and collection.

4.) Virtual Identity.

Collecting and verifying all information about us in a secure and centralized way makes government transactions fast and efficient.

5.) Healthcare.

Health records through blockchain can be handled more securely and efficiently. Only authorized healthcare institutions can access sensitive medical records for secure collaboration, thereby saving patients from costly fees due to bureaucratic processes.

Blockchain Countries to look up to.

The UK and Ukraine

Both these countries are on the verge of blockchaining their own respective land registries.

Estonia

Estonia built the KSI blockchain, a custom distribution ledger to make citizen-state transactions efficient and immutable. It includes healthcare, financial, and other public services.

Korea

Korea is about the operation and storage of all the population’s personal data for blockchain management. It also includes used vehicle records and allowances for the unemployed. Municipal administration is moving towards blockchain operation.

Sweden

Sweden looked to the land registry as a recipient of an effective private blockchain system with the database available to all land authorities and banks with transparent and verified changes allowed without extra charges or paperwork.

Dubai

Dubai’s movement into smart-city solutions is unprecedented. This year, all city government documents will have been stored in the blockchain, including workflow operations. It will result in a yearly savings of 25.1 million hours of economic productivity and control of CO2 emissions after Dubai follows all other areas in the Emirates, implementing the same smart-city solution.

To Blockchain or not to Blockchain. Final Notes.

Governments of nations sooner or later will have to face the inevitable. As of the moment, the only viable technology that can change the way they serve their people is via the blockchain technology. Technological advancement come out every now and then, and developers are working 24/7 to address remaining concerns that affect the full efficiency of blockchain technology especially data protection, privacy, and transparency. The speedy delivery of services through the help of the blockchain technology will greatly aid any country adopting it by the billions it can save in terms of time and money.