Jane Edwards
A new report by Data Foundation and Booz Allen Hamilton reviewed seven federal blockchain projects and identified five factors program administrators and policymakers should consider before implementing blockchain initiatives.
Booz Allen and Data Foundation said one of the considerations agencies should assess is whether they could achieve trust, data security and transparency gains from implementing blockchain initiatives.
Other factors federal agencies should look at are the practical application of blockchain; the appropriate blockchain design to implement; the compliance of blockchain applications with data sharing and confidentiality laws; and the relationship between information gains from implementing blockchain projects and cost.
The federal blockchain initiatives reviewed in the report are:
- 3D Print File Security, Joint Chiefs of Staff
- Accelerate project, Department of Health and Human Services
- GrantSolutions, HHS
- Information Exchange and Data Transformation project, Food and Drug Administration
- Mobile Device Tracking, Treasury Department
- Multiple Award Schedules Distributed Ledger Technology Pilot, General Services Administration
- Real-Time Application for Portable Interactive Devices project, FDA
The report said each of the projects assessed has a shared goal for using blockchain to practical issues.
“In many cases, the blockchain application solves some problem that otherwise presented a barrier to sharing or analyzing information. Because of that, each of the projects holds potential to both solve government challenges and to familiarize leaders in the sponsoring agencies with potential benefits to blockchain use,†the report noted.
