Hyland, a global content services provider for organizations, and Hedera Hashgraph, the enterprise-grade public ledger, today announced that they have presented a Proof of Concept (Poc) to the Texas Secretary of State to evaluate blockchain for the purpose of securing and verifying government-issued records.
This is the first proof of concept spearheaded by the newly-formed Texas Blockchain Council, a trade association that promotes the use of blockchain technology in Texas.
The proof of concept focuses on issuing electronic Apostilles, or e-Apostilles. An “Apostille” is a way of authenticating public documents that are recognized internationally. The process was codified in 1961 by the Hague Conference on Private International Law in an agreement known as the Apostille Convention. 118 countries are signatories to the Convention, meaning they recognize Apostilles issued by other signatory governments as legally valid documents. In the United States, Apostilles are typically issued by Secretaries of State.
Hyland provides software to process citizen document requests and issue electronic documents secured by blockchain technology. Natalie Smolenski leads business development for Hyland’s blockchain solutions. She said, “A blockchain can be utilized as a digital notary. That makes it perfect for validating official records, including identity documents and credentials. Governments will be adopting blockchain to prevent fraud, mitigate risk, create efficiencies, and lower costs.”
Hedera is a decentralized public platform on which developers can build secure applications. The platform is governed by a council of the world’s leading organizations including Avery Dennison, Boeing, Dentons, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Swirlds, Tata Communications, University College London (UCL), Wipro, and Zain Group.
Mance Harmon, Co-Founder, and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph, explained how the Hedera platform can be used as a secure protocol network layer for many kinds of government services. “Hedera makes it practical and cost-effective to bring the transparency and accountability of blockchain/public ledgers to a wide variety of identity, compliance, fraud mitigation, and other use cases. We’re thrilled to show the Texas Secretary of State and Hyland how blockchain/public ledgers enable government agencies to cost-effectively deliver next-generation services to their constituents.”
The Texas Blockchain Council works to make projects like this possible in Texas. To join the Texas Blockchain Council, contact: lee@texasblockchaincouncil.org.