The United Nations relied on blockchain technology to revise its own retirement system, and a study of this process concluded that innovation is “ultimate technology for the verification of digital identity”, which prompted the UN to extend the system and share it with other international groups.
The UN – which has explored various uses of blockchain over the years – has tried it on their joint United Nations retirement fund (UNJSPF), according to a white paper published this week which suggested its use to confirm people’s identities can help safety, efficiency and transparency. In cooperation with the Hyperledger Foundation, the UN sought to “improve and secure the United Nations retirement process on a global scale by putting a digital identification infrastructure supported by blockchain in production”.
The United Nations retirement fund had worked on a 70 -year -old system to identify beneficiaries in 190 countries, based on a paper approach to prove more than 70,000 beneficiaries who said they were, still alive and where they claimed to be. It was subject to errors and abuses, and led to around 1,400 payment suspensions each year, according to the document. The organization therefore moved to digital certification fueled by the blockchain, starting with a 2020 pilot program and an implementation 2021.
“The discrepancy of physical documentation has considerably reduced the treatment deadlines previously devoted to reception, opening, scanning and archiving paper documents,” said the newspaper.
The blockchain has helped to eliminate the problem to a decomposition point posed by a central managed approach, according to the document which detailed the process and the results, the authors suggest that its success could be repeated elsewhere. Its open access and its conviviality by several entities reduce the repetitive need for identity checks, have found the authors.
The UN explores the propagation of similar technologies in all its own system and sharing it elsewhere as a “digital public good”, seeking to extend the approach to the digital certificate of law to other international organizations.
“The project has provided not only a technical prototype, but also an operational model for the way in which the United Nations family organizations can collaborate to design a secure, scalable and inclusive digital public infrastructure,” wrote Sameer Chauhan, director of the International Center for the United Nations, in a conclusion included in the document.
