Abstract
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Commercial and non-profit use of the blockchain technology across the world has demonstrated its significant advantages over traditional arrangements. The technology appears to be the most appropriate in areas that require storage and processing of large amounts of protected data.
Simple, convenient and effective interaction between the government and the citizen has become a common expectation in the modern information society. Electronic government solutions - based on automation of decision making processes on a nation-wide scale - are serving to meet these expectations, while generating efficiencies in government and social communications for each member of the society.
Belarus has made visible progress towards establishing an electronic government infrastructure and services. These achievements have been enabled primarily by accelerated development of information and communication technologies. However, citizens' participation in e-government in Belarus is still below the average for Eastern Europe, which is largely the result of limited penetration of interactive functions and online services available from the official web-sites of government bodies and institutions.
Among the multiple technological solutions, varying in speed, and the degrees of reliability and data safety, several recent technological innovations stand out, based on radically new principles of compatibility and offering great promise for electronic government.
Blockchain is a transparent distributed data base that records details on all transactions performed by the system's participants. In the context of electronic government, this means a technology that stores data on the results of all interactions between citizens and government agencies.
Importantly, the data are interlinked, coded and stored by all members of the system, and are automatically updated to reflect the changes made. Users act as a collective notary that certifies the accuracy of the data in the system and guards against abuses and scheming attempts. Blockchain technology acts as a control on the egoistic motives that cause some people to engage in corrupt practices to the detriment of society and state sovereignty
It should also be remembered that the technology's main distinction is that it represents a distributed network with encrypted data and no main server that could be hacked or tampered with. Blockchain-based arrangements - automated auctions, smart contracts, and decentralised autonomous organisations, among others, represent serious steps towards greater decentralisation.
It would be quite difficult to imagine extensive use of blockchain technology in a centrally planned economy. It can be expected to become the most effective in a system that favours minimum government intervention in the economy, where the regulator merely sets and enforces the rules and acts as an arbiter in disputes.
In summary, the obvious effect of blockchain-based solutions and their integration in the system of electronic government will be increased effectiveness of government, reduced cost of transactions and simpler, quicker, more effective, and consequently more convenient means of interaction between the government and the citizen.
Performance of an administrative procedure amounts to making a record in an official registry of civil status, property rights, health, etc. In consequence, the blockchain technology can be viewed as a unique and a universal technology that helps streamline and automate nearly all administrative procedures while increasing the transparency and effectiveness of e-government.
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