The United Nations leaned to Blockchain technology to revise its own pension system, and a study of that process concluded that innovation is the “ultimate technology for digital identity verification” that the UN has encouraged to expand and share the system with other international groups.
The UN – who has investigated various blockchain applications over the years – tried it on their Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF) of the United Nations, according to a white paper released this week that suggested that its use can help the identity of people with safety, efficiency and transparency. In collaboration with the Hyperledger Foundation, the UN tried to improve the UN pension process worldwide and secure them by bringing a digital identification infrastructure supported by blockchain. “
The UN Pension Fund completed a 70-year system to identify beneficiaries in 190 countries, depending on a paper approach to prove that more than 70,000 beneficiaries were who they said, still alive and where they claimed to be. It was susceptible to mistakes and abuse, and resulted in approximately 1,400 payment apron every year, according to the document. So the organization shifted to the blockchain-driven digital certification, starting with a 2020 pilot program and an implementation of 2021.
“The shift of physical documentation has considerably reduced processing times that were previously spent on receiving, opening, scanning and archiving paper documents,” the newspaper said.
The blockchain helped eliminate the problem with the single-point-of-Failure of a centrally managed approach, according to the paper that described the process and the results, suggesting that the authors could be repeated elsewhere. The open access and usability by multiple entities reduces the repetitive need for identity controls, the authors found.
The UN is investigating the distribution of similar technology in its own system and shares it elsewhere as a ‘digital audience good’ to extend the digital certificate of law approach to other international organizations.
“The project has not only delivered a technical prototype, but also an operational model for how organizations in the UN family can work together to design safe, scalable and inclusive digital public infrastructure,” wrote Sameer Chauhan, the director of the International Computing Center of the United Nations, included in the article.