+ Government | Government is doing these things with blockchain

Text: Huang Xueyi

Produced by: Odaily Planet Daily

Recently, many governments have successively introduced favorable policies, provided supporting infrastructure, and laid out industrial blockchains. While empowering other industries, government departments are also becoming "customers" of the blockchain, such as applying the blockchain to government affairs systems. As early as July 2017, Beijing issued the "Implementation Plan for the Promotion of Beijing Municipal Government's" One Netcom Office "Work Plan, which explicitly proposed the application of blockchain technology to government services, demonstrating its approval for this technology.

In the past two years, the application of blockchain in the field of government affairs has covered many scenarios such as digital identity, electronic certificate, electronic bills, property rights registration, industrial and commercial registration, data sharing, public supervision, administrative approval and other scenarios. More than 40.

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According to the statistics of the inter-chain pulse, in the last month, there have been 9 items related to blockchain-related procurement information released by the Chinese government procurement network.

For the government affairs system, as mentioned in the Information Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in the “ 2018 Blockchain White Paper '', with the use of blockchain technology, government departments can safely authorize relevant parties to access data, and record data call behaviors, resulting in data leakage. Effective and accurate accountability in the event, thereby providing a trusted environment for cross-level and cross-sector data interconnection and interoperability, and improving the efficiency of government services.

The advanced and convenient government services affect the development process of the whole society. As the blockchain wave approaches, the innovation of government services is expected to reach a new level.

How difficult is traditional government affairs?

The construction of domestic e-government began in 1999, and the “Internet +” transformation began in 2014. In 2017, the domestic e-government market size reached 272.2 billion yuan, but from the perspective of development level, there is still much room for improvement.

The "2018 United Nations E-Government Survey Report" shows that China's e-government development index EGDI is 0.6811, ranking 65th in the world, in a middle-to-high position, and there is a certain gap from the leading countries.

Domestic e-government is undergoing a phase transition from a departmental to a platform type. The goal is to build a one-stop government service platform across provinces, cities, and departments, that is, "One Netcom Office". However, current e-government systems still face problems such as data silos, poor security, and lack of supervision.

Technically, databases of different government departments are independent of each other, and information integration is difficult.

From a dynamic perspective, there are security risks in sharing data. E-government related information involves national security and citizen privacy, and if it is wrong or leaked, the consequences are serious.

In addition, the government system is often criticized for its inefficiency.

Traditional e-government activities require the manual assistance of financial institutions, regulators, and intermediaries. According to public information, to purchase a stock of second-hand housing in a city, transaction registration needs to submit more than 20 materials to 3 departments, and travel to the office hall 5-6 times. Even though some departments have moved their businesses online, citizens still need to download different apps for different businesses.

Blockchain technology to help

With the blockchain, the technical characteristics of its "encryption", "public ledger", and "smart contract" provide conditions for cross-agency interaction, privacy protection, and improved efficiency. Compared with the traditional platform, the blockchain-based e-government platform uses point-to-point encrypted transmission and "smart contract" rapid approval, so as to achieve the goals of cost reduction and efficiency, transparency and traceability, information security encryption, and breakthrough of information islands.

Take the transformation of the old city as an example, following the traditional procedure, it must pass through the urban management department, fire department, and urban construction department to the developer for about one and a half years. After being transformed by the blockchain, before the project is launched, hierarchical management authority, smart contract automatic distribution information, and online real-time approval information for multiple parties can be completed in half a year, while improving information transparency and traceability.

Today, according to incomplete statistics, the application of blockchain in the government affairs field covers 8 subdivided scenarios, including digital identity, electronic certificate, electronic bills, property rights registration, industrial and commercial registration, data sharing, public supervision, and administrative approval. ; More than 40 projects are underway and on the ground.

In addition to the vertical application of blockchain + a certain scenario, various localities and departments have also invested in the industry-university-research work of "blockchain + government affairs".

According to mutual chain pulse statistics, in 2019, there will be 22 industrial service projects. For example, in September this year, the Office of the Central Cyber ​​Security and Informatization Commission tendered for the "Blockchain Information Service Recording Service" project, and its work content is to improve the industrial ecological construction.

Speaking of which, many people may be curious about how so many blockchain government affairs systems are rapidly rolled out.

Since most government departments do not have IT R & D teams, blockchain government affairs systems are mostly selected through tendering. According to statistics, the enterprises participating in the construction of government blockchain projects are mainly small and micro enterprises with certain technical strength, and local enterprises, enterprises with both blockchain technology and other information technologies (rather than pure blockchain enterprises). More favored.

Data sharing and public supervision

In the 8 segmented scenarios mentioned above, the Odaily Planet Daily has specifically combed the fields of "digital identity" and "electronic certificate" and "electronic bill". Below we will mainly introduce the blockchain in data sharing and public supervision. Use cases in two areas of government.

• data sharing

Among the various types of data, the housing chain data is most widely shared on the chain. Wuhan, Guangxi Yulin, Pingdingshan, Henan, and Jiayuguan, Gansu all conducted tenders for the government application of housing provident funds.

In October last year, Hainan Province adopted the “Joint Distrust and Discipline and Deposit Certificate Cloud Platform” developed by Ant Financial Services Blockchain and Watson Cooper to achieve cross-centre and cross-region sharing of provident fund blacklists and deposit certificates.

In terms of deposit certification, according to the staff of Alipay, before the introduction of blockchain technology, Xiao Wang, who has paid for the provident fund in Haikou, needs to go to Sanya to buy a house, and then he must first print the deposit certificate in Haikou Provident Fund Management Center, and then get For Sanya's application, several trips are unavoidable. The Sanya Provident Fund Center also needs to contact Haikou to verify the deposit certificate. The processing cycle is long and delays often occur.

After the introduction of blockchain technology, Xiaowang's deposit certificate is encoded and chained to ensure its authenticity. Now, as long as Xiao Wang applies for a deposit certificate in Alipay, the Sanya Provident Fund Center will get the authorization to query and verify the certificate on the chain. In this way, Xiao Wang's errands in two places and the trouble of manually exchanging information between the two departments are saved.

In terms of the provident fund blacklist, each city's housing provident fund management center only needs to access the above platform and upload the blacklist of each center to achieve information sharing and cannot be tampered with. Once the unscrupulous person handles the housing provident fund business in another place, it will be clear at a glance.

• Public-Related Supervision

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, anti-corruption has been one of the main themes of political life. To put it into practice, the government's funds must be used for special purposes and the context must be clear. In traditional engineering projects, if the fund's direction is unknown, it may lead to subcontracts and unclear responsibilities and powers; misappropriation of funds will lead to delays in the construction period, hidden dangers in project quality, wage arrears, etc.

To solve these problems, Xiong'an New District introduced a blockchain-based engineering fund management platform developed by Yifan Digital Technology Co., Ltd. during the construction process.

According to the relevant person in charge of Xiong'an Group, the project fund management platform combines BIM (Building Information Model) + CIM (City Information Model), and is a legal entity (developer, constructor, supervisor, operation) in the construction industry chain. Party) and individuals to provide digital identities to prepare for the on-chain.

After the project starts, each subject of the project needs to hold a private key to sign and confirm the circulation of funds and broadcast it on the chain. From this, it is clear at a glance which link the project funds go to, to whom, and when it is issued.

Since its operation in August last year, the platform has been connected to a number of projects, managed more than 1,000 enterprises, and managed about 2 billion yuan of funds; a total of more than 200 million yuan has been issued to 40,000 builders.

Outside of Xiong'an, the “Blockchain Sensitive Data Audit Platform” that Hunan Zhuzhou put into operation last year also uses blockchain technology to record the operation logs of various business departments and positions on the business database, thus tracing back to the data records and All links of the circulation, so as to prevent and follow up the operator beforehand, and improve the security of sensitive data.

Some challenges faced

Although many use cases have been implemented, compared to the entire e-government market, "chain + government" is still in a small-scale attempt.

For pioneers, it is inevitable to encounter problems in exploration.

The first problem is the particularity of the service object. As a special agency, the government has a large service group and a wide range of services, so it is extremely cautious when setting up and verifying projects.

The person in charge of "Nansha Administrative Examination and Approval Service Platform" and deputy general manager of "Government Affairs Chain" once said that the project lasted about 9 months from the project's establishment to the completion of the project. The project involves a wide range, including 19 government departments in Nansha District, covering more than 2,000 affairs.

Another difficulty is that the development of blockchain technology as the infrastructure itself has not yet matured.

Wan Lin, the founder of the government affairs chain, found in practice that the original bottom layer of the blockchain, such as Ethereum and the hyperledger, belong to the underlying system. The logic is relatively simple, and the smart contract functions are not complete. .

Nevertheless, as an industry insider said, the advanced and convenient government services affect the development process of the whole society, and we still cannot stop the pace of exploration.

References:

"2018 China Blockchain E-Government Research Report", Chain Tower Think Tank, 2018.10

"Government on the chain, or performance on the chain? 》, Zinc Link

"Government Bidding for Blockchain in the Last Two Years: Small and Micro Enterprises Are the Main Forces for Successful Bids, with a Single Amount Up to More Than 8.5 Million Yuan", Mutual Chain Pulse

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