Chinese Courts Tap Blockchain Technology to Monitor Sealed Properties
The Executive Bureau of the People’s Court in the Haidian District of Beijing has used a blockchain-based electronic seal to secure a building in Chaoyang district from unauthorized access. The electronic seal sends notifications to the relevant authorities in real-time whenever there’s illegal access to a sealed property, reports Global Times on July 5, 2020.
Properties on the Blockchain
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed distributed ledger technology (DLT) and urged the Chinese to do more with the technology, the Asian giant has seemingly ramped up its efforts to explore the potential of blockchain.
In the latest development, the Executive Bureau of the People’s Court in Haidian, Beijing has for the first time, used a blockchain-based electronic seal to safeguard a sealed building from illegal access.
Per sources close to the matter, the blockchain-enabled electronic seal is embedded with a copy of the court ruling to inform trespassers of the status of the property. When the building is being tampered with, the seal will turn on an internal surveillance camera to capture the image of the bad actors while also sending notification messages to the mobile phone of the relevant authorities.
That’s not all, the electronic seal also automatically plays a pre-recorded warning video to warn the criminal of the legal consequences of his actions.
Widespread Adoption of DLT
The team says the blockchain solution can also be used by the relevant authorities to carry out property information queries, and other operations on the sealed property.
Reportedly, a good number of courthouses across China, including in East China’s Jiangsu Province, Jiangxi Province and South China’s Hunan Province are now using blockchain-enabled electronic seals to seal properties in their jurisdictions.
While the trading of bitcoin (BTC) and other digital currencies remains banned in China, though it is now legal for citizens to inherit cryptos, the underlying blockchain technology is increasingly being used in various facets of the Chinese economy.
Earlier in May 2020, Bayer China, a leading Chinese pharmaceutical firm announced plans to launch a blockchain-based Clinical Trial Traceability platform dubbed cSecure, in collaboration with VeChain (VET).
More recently, in June, authorities in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province adopted blockchain technology for the issuance of consumption vouchers to residents as part of COVID-19 palliatives.
