Storing And Verifying Documents Using Blockchain Technology

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The world is getting digital, and the classic ways of doing things are gradually fading away. Transactions, businesses, employment, hiring, education, and a wealth of other tasks are now conducted entirely digitally. As beneficial as the digital world appears to be, it poses a big problem: how to safeguard our information from harmful cyberattacks.

Problems Faced With Storing Documents Traditionally

It’s tough to believe someone’s qualifications on their face these days. The problem is usually reported as a significant reason for the high inefficiencies in a variety of industries.

People must pay institutions for access to their records if proof or access to crucial data is requested. Waiting for a response from the institution or for verification to arrive might take a long time. On the other hand, businesses are hampered by outmoded processes and middleman bottlenecks, both in terms of data access and accreditation.

The Tanzanian President John Magufuli’s sacking in late April 2017 of nearly 10,000 civil servants for having fake educational certificates.

Issues Facing Document Verification

• Lack of transparency
• No trusted centralized authority
• Document falsification
• Reputational risks
• Cost inefficiencies

Blockchain’s Impact In Issuing And Securing Certificates & Documents

The storage, retrieval, and access to data are the most important challenges in document verification for banks and other organizations. As a result, blockchain technology was developed to deal with these issues with data storage and access. Blockchain technology creates a centralised platform for document storage, retrieval, and access. The technology’s entire essence lies in distributed, shareable, open ledgers that can be verified by anybody.

Instead of a public ledger or a single database, the Blockchain is a public ledger that is used to record all transactions in a decentralised data log. While blockchain technology was first used to produce cryptocurrencies, it is currently being advocated in a variety of fields, including trade, file storage, payment services, identity management, financial exchanges, medical records management, education, and more.

When it comes to humans, document verification is a daily thing. They must authenticate their documents in every aspect of their lives, including new births, marriages, judicial actions, employment objectives, and every other new step in their lives. Blockchain technology can be used to do this. With blockchain technology, document verification is no longer difficult and is also immune to erroneous representations.

The papers to be validated are hashed, and a cryptographically generated key, rather than the actual copy of the document, is kept on the blockchain network.

When a university decides to use blockchain technology to store or issue certificates, the first step is to transform these papers into a hash code using cryptography. The code is also uploaded to the blockchain network. The resulting hash code looks like a copy of the content but is displayed as a string of codes. These codes serve as the document’s key. For this document to be legitimate when presented elsewhere, the coding must match that recorded on the blockchain.

Assume a recruiter who is seeking to employ someone for his service and requests his certifications to verify his qualifications. The recruiter may do this using blockchain by entering the key created by hashing the document’s content into the school’s site or a verification app, which has a database of all their legitimate graduates. The degree certificates created are authentic if the hash matches the information kept on blockchain by the school from which he claims to have graduated.

Advantages of Using Blockchain technology to store and Verify Documents.

• The use of blockchain technology to verify documents avoids the need for a third party, reducing the cost of transactions on the network. This saves money.
• Certificates are stored on a distributed ledger, enabling anyone to access data at any time and from any location. Documents are securely stored on the blockchain, and only authorised individuals with private keys may access them.
• Blockchain technology saves data in an unchangeable format. This is accomplished using cryptography, which encrypts data using a hash function. As a result, data becomes irreversible. Hacking is very difficult.
• Companies can be certain that they are only recruiting the best people without having to spend countless hours and millions of dollars confirming all of the applicants’ certificates and job experience.
• Universities, colleges, and other educational institutions will no longer be spending hundreds of hours authenticating the degrees and study routes of their graduates, as is the case now.
• Every candidate is fairly evaluated based on his or her true credentials, abilities, and experience, rather than based on faked diplomas or forged recommendations. On the blockchain, institutions and companies can eliminate the problem of “fake diplomas” and encourage Lifelong Learning by issuing validated credentials anywhere in the world.

Conclusion

The current technique demonstrates how a Blockchain may quickly and cheaply handle the problem of validating the integrity of digital assets such as a photo of your birth certificate, a pdf document outlining your will, or a signed legal document defining a commercial contract. This example also explains that the solution is based on a variety of non-Blockchain technologies, with the Blockchain being utilised primarily for the very particular role of storing digital signatures of assets that establish their legitimacy.

These digital signatures may be viewed by anybody due to the properties of the Blockchain (the permanent decentralized database of information). As a result, anybody with access to the Blockchain may now verify the integrity of a digital asset without relying on third parties and more importantly, the data is immutable on Blockchain which reduces the risk of fraudulent documents to zero.

About Us

Savvient Technologies is an Australian-owned technology provider, focusing on building robust solutions via Custom Application Development, Product Engineering, Enterprise Solutions, Business Intelligence, and Analytics and Quality and Testing Services. If you’re searching for a technology partner with the right experience and skills, or email at hello@savvient.com.au now.

Originally published at http://savvient.com.au on June 9, 2021.