Blockchain Technology Applications in Government

Blockchain in government services has a wide range of application areas for various departments from legal document storage and management to healthcare benefits. Decentralized nature opens opportunities for a government that can achieve operations 24/7 and cut back office operations. A Blockchain system for government offers a potential solution to legacy pain points and establishes a secure storage for citizens and businesses. It also reduces intensive paper processes, excessive managing costs, and potential corruption and abuse. Instead, it greatly increases security of digital services and more importantly trust in the government. This chapter provides a detailed review of Blockchain solutions for three major government services: land registry, GDPR, and healthcare. For each service, a state-of-the-art is given, followed with the technical details of use cases and potential improvements for current problems.

Application of Blockchain Technology in Land Administration in Ghana

The administration of lands in Ghana has been a major issue in the past years that has resulted in parties seeking arbitration to determine the rightful owners and others resulting in death because of the land-guard menace. The main issues in land administration in Ghana include modification and falsification of land records, difficulty in authenticating the ownership of land property, sales of land property to more than one customer, and lack of transparency in land transactions. This chapter examines the application of Blockchain in land administration in Ghana to solve the issues of unauthorized modification of land records, difficulties in proven ownership of land properties, and the lack of transparency in land transactions. The proposed solution is based on Ethereum Blockchain technology using a smart contract. The solution used a non-fungible token to represent land properties as a digital asset that can be traded on the proposed solution. The proposed solution provides integrity, immutability, provenance, and transparency in land administration.

Cross-Industry Use of Blockchain Technology and Opportunities for the Future

Blockchain and artificial intelligence are two disruptive technologies in the today's world; Blockchain can connect data storage and data users from multiple domains, and different kinds of analytics applications run on top of the data in artificial intelligence techniques. So that Blockchain technology provide the excellent backbone for the development of artificial intelligence algorithms, it is useful to secure the data input from multiple data storage locations and to have whatever applications running on top of the data in a Blockchain visible to everyone. The concept of Blockchain technology and artificial intelligence techniques together develop interesting uses cases and nice applications. When paired with Blockchains, AI is better understood by humans, operates more efficiently, and the blockchains in general more efficiently. AI and Blockchain together support B2B environment and getting better outcomes.

Cross-Chain Blockchain Networks, Compatibility Standards, and Interoperability Standards

This chapter explains the role and how interoperability standards and compatibility standards will enable the development of cross-chain blockchain networks. Blockchain currently lacks standardization. There are different initiatives aimed at facilitating interoperability between different blockchains. But if there are no uniform interoperability and compatibility standards, that will cause a problem for the development of cross-chain blockchain networks. In the EU, there is an initiative to facilitate a continental cross-chain blockchain network. Interoperability and compatibility standards are an integral aspect of the initiative. This chapter uses the case of the EU as a basis for explanation on how blockchain service providers can work together to develop these standards.

Developing Use Cases of Blockchain Technology

Technology innovation creates value and competitive advantage. Blockchain has been used to resolve existing problems and offer efficient operations. Blockchain is applied in education, healthcare, automation, etc. Blockchain with permanence and reliability attributes has created trust in digital assets with high integrity and availability to leverage on innovative transactions. Indeed, a plethora of blockchain use cases and value propositions are documented. That notwithstanding, there is dearth of literature on transforming some legacy systems and creating value. To harness the potential, a deeper understanding of use cases and future opportunities is imperative. So, how can blockchain be harnessed for best value creation? What strategies could be adopted by SMEs to leverage? The study explicated on taxonomy of use cases in taxation, e-voting, AI and IoT, and analyzed some value creation perspectives to identify opportunities, in particular, smart contracts used to enforce regulatory compliance. It implies that blockchain use cases could create future opportunities for SMEs.

Study and Survey on Blockchain Privacy and Security Issues

Blockchain-based technology is becoming increasingly popular and is now used to solve a wide range of tasks. And it's not all about cryptocurrencies. Even though it's based on secure technology, a blockchain needs protection as well. The risks of exploits, targeted attacks, or unauthorized access can be mitigated by the instant incident response and system recovery. Blockchain technology relies on a ledger to keep track of all financial transactions. Ordinarily, this kind of master ledger would be a glaring point of vulnerability. Another tenet of security is the chain itself. Configuration flaws, as well as insecure data storage and transfers, may cause leaks of sensitive information. This is even more dangerous when there are centralized components within the platform. In this chapter, the authors will demonstrate where the disadvantages of security and privacy in blockchain are currently and discuss how blockchain technology can improve these disadvantages and outlines the requirements for future solution.

When Trust is not Enough to Mobilize Blockchains

The Mobilization Decision theory provides an insight into why mobilization occurs and the factors that result in mobilization. In the last decade, blockchain technology has been touted as a technology that facilitates trust between unknown parties. Trust is at the core of all human interaction, be it commercial or social. However, the global adoption of blockchain is low. At a global scale, relatively few organizations have mobilized blockchain to either handle or support their organizational processes. In order to understand why this is the case, the mobilization decision theory is used to explain why the global adoption of blockchain is low and what needs to change to facilitate its widespread adoption at a global scale.

Emerging Opportunities for Blockchain Use by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Developing Economies

The blockchain digital technology holds immense possibilities for the growth and development of developing economies such as Ghana. Since the emergence of blockchain technology, many developing economies have as yet to tap into its limitless possibilities with Ghana being no exception. In this chapter, the authors explore the possibilities for the blockchain for SMEs in developing economies like Ghana with a view to identifying the properties of a blockchain ecosystem that will facilitate their development, adoption, and use by SMEs.

Redefining Trust and Disinter-Mediation With Blockchain in E-Governance

Blockchain technology (BCT) is becoming a common language across diverse geographical domains. BCT attempts to solve the fraud issues involved in financial transactions and government operations. E-governance is a convenient platform providing services to all connected citizens and inter-government sectors. Traditional centralization issues are addressed by decentralizing the stakes, keeping the transactions transparent on an open ledger–BCT. It works on the notion of disintermediation eliding the middle layers with the highest trust level. It can contribute to various e-government sectors, namely agriculture, property registrations, supply chain management, tax calculation, etc. BCT application for agriculture supply change management can provide assistance in crop plantation and delivery records. It can bring transparency in land registrations and tax management by maintaining immutable land records and simplified tax management preserving trust between various parties through smart contracts. This chapter focuses on BCT approaches for secured governance.

Blockchain Smart Contracts and Empathy Trade-Off

Contracts have emerged as an appropriate expanse for the application of Blockchain to eliminate human mediation perceived to be mired by weaknesses. Smart contracts date back to the 1990s, but the proposed Blockchain technology makes it a great force economically. Beyond the transactional processing qualities of blockchain, industries envisage the technology to resolve divergent human-related complications with traditional contracts. Per literature, smart contracts offer superior economic value with respect to legality, formation, deployment, execution, and cost. These qualities of smart contract ensure performance and eliminate risk. Criticised on the inhumane aspect of the technology in terms of contract amendments and the current influx of foreign-based blockchain companies in Africa limiting indigenous design considerations, the application of smart contracts in continent could be hindered by contract renegotiations strongly embedded in cultural values of empathy. Nonetheless, a trade-off would resolve the contractual bottlenecks in Africa.