Successful Cases of Using Blockchain in Public Administration in Italy

With what is currently happening in the minds of the public, coinidol.com, the world news outlet, decided to conduct an overall assessment of the level of adoption of Blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the field of public administration (PA) in Italy, on the most interesting application areas and important cases of use.

There is Blockchain, one of the most innovative technologies that has decentralization as its founding principle, and on the other, a typically centralized sector, which is in the middle of a profound digital transformation process in Italy. However, from the results of the research of the Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Observatory in collaboration with the Digital Agenda Observatory, it seems that the combination is possible.

Interesting Application Areas for Blockchain & DLT in PA

The areas of application of greatest interest to the public sector include: health, urban planning and traffic, public finance and the electoral system. The processes in which the Blockchain technology is most adopted are those relating to the management of data and documents, identity management, payments, property transfers, supply chains, procurement and also the management of tenders and traders.

In most cases, the Blockchain experiments in the public sphere are mainly carried out by central Public Administrations, with projects on a national basis to search for efficiency, transparency and security benefits.

It is possible to classify the Blockchain and DLT projects in the PA on the basis of the use that has been made of the technology in three large groups: notarization, smart contract and Distributed Ledger systems.

Some Useful Blockchain Cases in Italy

In Italy, Public Administrations are looking at the Blockchain theme with great interest and are starting to experiment. Among the most active regions on this front there is certainly the Lombardy Region which, after experimenting with the technology for the "Lombardia è Ricerca" award, has chosen the municipality of Cinisello Balsamo to apply the Blockchain to the "Nidi gratis" project. The objective is to simplify and speed up access to the call, through a platform that automatically verifies the possession of all the requirements for zeroing the fee.

At the municipal level, the Municipality of Bari has already moved, which has experimented with the Blockchain in a project for the digitalization of the process of managing surety bonds.

Even the Ministry of Economy and Finance has already started using the Blockchain for two projects: PoSeID-on, an innovative platform for the management and protection of personal data, and for SUNFISH, a secure federation solution between different clouds for sharing protected data.

Within the University, several universities are gearing up to certify degrees with a notarization on Blockchain, the University of Milan-Bicocca which has introduced a blockchain system to guarantee students the validity and integrity of official documents and certificates on the web.

Many other public administrations in Italy have taken action, from customs to motorization, as a sign that they have understood the innovative scope of technology and are beginning to experiment with it.