Government transparency that enables trust and accountability is one of the pillars of democracy. Such transparency allows media, independent auditors, and regular people to assess the government’s actions and, before they are assessed, to discover them. Although some bad actors might hide parts of their activity for political or financial gains, every time such manipulation is disclosed, trust in the government falls rapidly.
The same issues happen too often in business, as well. Dieselgate was one of the most recent examples of such activity. Volkswagen intentionally cheated on laboratory emissions test and distributed millions of vehicles that far surpassed the limits outlined in the Clear Air Act. When it was exposed, the manufacturer lost trust and had to pay enormous fines. Such activities are usually exposed at some point in time.
In a world where trust is highly valuable, losing it can end up with major revolutions, both in governments and businesses. After all, that’s why blockchain emerged. DLTs could impact this area heavily by replacing trust with secure, decentralized platforms.
For example, copyright and patent claims could be easily assessed by data timestamps that can’t be altered. It’s one of the simplest features of DLT and some entities are already using it. A general transparency might not be suitable for all cases – for example, national security. But there are many areas which might benefit from total or partial transparency.
The Aleph Zero network can be both a public and a private ledger. Therefore, the public network can work as a hub and is suitable for holding the data that can and should be accessible by the general public. Some private chains (the “spokes,” as we call them) connected to the public record can enhance the security of other aspects of governing while still operating internally, with access control.
Using Aleph Zero on a public layer can improve efficiency in many areas of governing and business and improve the communication of the two with citizens. Besides the obvious benefit that a decentralized ledger can reduce the amount of paperwork and compliance, it can also bring innovations like algorithmic laws that would be sufficient for emerging technologies, rather than putting them into grey areas as often happens now.
Unless the trust aspect can be handed over to decentralized technology like Aleph Zero, we will continue to witness trust crises for governments and businesses. Only with broadly implemented open data access policies (where needed), we can innovate and legislate faster to grow the global economy.