South Korea aims to establish blockchain-based online elections by 2022
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced today their goal of establishing several blockchain-based systems, including an online voting and election system by 2022.
The ‘Blockchain Technology Diffusion Strategy’ is the basis from which the new system is meant to come. The Ministry made the announcement at the 4th Industrial Revolution Committee meeting earlier today.
The government has decided to introduce blockchain technology to seven areas including: online voting, donations, social welfare, renewable energy, finance, real estate transactions, and postal services.
In the elections system, one of the main components is meant to be a DID service which will likely be used to verify the identity of each individual voter and prevent fraud. This is a significant upgrade from existing mail-in voting systems such as in the USA which have been the cause of some controversy since Donald Trump took office.
The donations platform will benefit from blockchain technology in that benefactors will be able to trace their donations all the way from the point of the donation all the way to the final recipient via a transparent ledger system. Telecoms giant SK has already implemented such a system for donations that includes a token issuance platform as well. SK’s system is called Warm Change and boasts the same benefits via blockchain as the Korean government for a major upgrade in the charitable donations field.
The social welfare area of implementation will involve a token issuance platform, again similar to SK’s Warm Change. Such a token issuance platform allows all parties involved to eliminate the possibility of fraud by knowing exactly how much supply each single donation should have throughout the course of its journey from the donor to the receiver.
The areas of renewable energy and real estate have also already been explored by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport within the Korean government. The system will be used to establish an integrated customer management system for post offices. The previously explored aspects of real estate involved building an electronic real estate contract system integrated into the existing offline system that can process contracts and registrations at once.
This major push in blockchain technology integration is in light of a report made in 2018 that estimated that South Korea was about 2.4 years behind global leaders in meeting global technological standards. At the time, Korea’s blockchain technology level was only 76.4% that of the U.S. By comparison, Europe, Japan, and China were rated 96%, 84.8%, and 78.9% behind respectively.
The government will require the aid of various blockchain companies in the meantime before full implementation of their goal. As a result, the ministry noted some urgency for companies that wish to be a part of the system to utilize the regulatory sandbox program currently underway in Busan in the Busan Regulatory Free Blockchain Zone.
Kiyoung Choi, Ministry of Science and ICT said, “[If we take advantage of the coronavirus era opportunistically, we can become a leading country in blockchain as the foundation of hyperconnectivity and non-face-to-face interactions.]”
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