Co-authored by Jason Killmeyer
Anyone who has watched or read the news recently is familiar with the speculation that a foreign government was behind the email hack at the DNC, which may also raise questions about the security of our voting infrastructure. Back in May, we wrote about how blockchain technology provides a secure, transparent platform that could be used to facilitate secure and transparent elections, uniting voters, politicians, election officials, and activists around a single, verifiable source of truth. Given the recent events, we anticipate that this is only the beginning of a conversation about the cyber security of our elections systems.
In addition to elections, blockchain has a wide range of potential applications in government, including the gamification of government services. This year, a host of white papers from various federal, state, and foreign government agencies provide insight into the degree of attention blockchain technology garners in contemporary discussion, and more interestingly, the nature of potential uses for government in healthcare, national security and elsewhere. In our internal discussions here at Deloitte, we spend a lot of time thinking about the intersection of technologies that might deliver a different kind of government experience, and we wondered how the cleaner payment rails that blockchain provides – already opening up new areas for commodification and micropayments – might be relevant in a federal landscape. One team member recalled the familiar slogans of recent car insurance commercials, where drivers can elect into unique-to-the-driver incentive programs based upon a variety of data the driver agrees to let the insurer collect.
The potential for the exploration of similar incentives, particularly in ways that make explicit the value proposition to citizen and taxpayer, can power an era of government where a distributed platform such as blockchain integrates government services across a shared architecture and allows for experimentation with tailorable, modern incentives and secure personal data. There are a number of uses where government or citizen prerogatives could be incentivized in citizen-friendly ways. For example, consider how connected cars will allow for unique forms of social incentives (e.g. maybe paying a nickel to the car in front of you to finally move into the right lane). This could lead not only to societal benefits, for instance making more explicit certain externalities that are hard to express clearly now, and more broadly, to allow for a tailorable citizen-state experience that better serves each citizen.
What if a certification of “safe-driving,” and the lowered societal cost that safe driving creates qualified you for an additional $100 on your tax refund? Or what if you received a “credit” for moving out of the way efficiently when an ambulance passed, and that credit could be applied to the next parking ticket or speeding ticket you receive? Whether that credit is maintained across a blockchain in a native municipal token or is simply used to securely record credits and debits into a new or existing account, the creation and maintenance of public records across a range of new service areas is now easier than ever, even with increasing challenges to data protection.
Beyond taxes and transportation, blockchain could potentially allow for each of the government services we receive to be integrated into a “one account” platform or mechanism, streamlining information for both the citizen and government on a distributed, secure ledger. Citizens could elect how and when they want to receive services on a personalized dashboard—you could elect to have your social security payments automatically go towards your property taxes, or have the cost of registering a new business in Delaware paid for out of your tax refund. The secure distributed platform created by blockchain would give you the confidence that the “numbers are right,” and the ability to audit the entire chain (or at least the transaction metadata) to prove it.
Blockchain could provide the foundation for a viable enterprise architecture for the next generation government, necessarily supported by a strong digital identity framework. Looking ahead, discussions about blockchain in government will hopefully expand to include what true “e-government” actually looks like, and how we can move beyond the automation of existing processes and towards something greater.