Regardless of being a long time into the digital revolution, most of our official data stay caught in a paper-based format hardly totally different from what our grandparents used. Even our present digital documentation system is a multitude, making certain that our most vital official data are exhausting to maintain observe of, a problem to entry, and terribly insecure. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are the perfect means by which to revolutionize file conserving, providing us the chance to expertise a better, cheaper, and safer technique to retailer and doc vital data and identification.
Granted, when many in most of the people hear about NFTs, they consider them as little greater than campy “Bored Apes,” or “Cowboy Trump” paintings. Nevertheless, the truth is that with their distinctive properties NFTs are the perfect digital format by which we will doc and retailer our most vital data. This new expertise can change the necessity for extra conventional types of documentation whereas making them extra accessible and safe than ever earlier than.
We have identified for the reason that 9/11 Fee issued its report that we’re in want of higher requirements for our identification. The present system for documenting and verifying vital private {and professional} data is technologically outdated and liable to fraud, be it from terrorists making an attempt to enter the nation illegally or scammers opening bank cards within the names of others. Furthermore, these paperwork are often nonetheless bodily items of paper that may be simply misplaced or stolen, usually requiring weeks or months to exchange them. In addition they depend on a centralized system of record-keeping that may be inefficient and liable to errors.
It’s little surprise then that so many liberals and conservatives alike have objected to the Actual ID system as it’s at the moment structured. Actual ID, because it at the moment stands, depends on expertise that builds on all of those issues as an alternative of fixing them. With the implementation of those requirements delayed but once more, till not less than mid-2025, we nonetheless have time to do higher.
NFTs supply us a greater answer to the issues that plague conventional identification by offering an simply accessible technique to symbolize official data, all whereas being remarkably proof against tampering and fraud. Additional, in contrast to conventional paperwork which have their data saved in a centralized database that’s susceptible to hacks and breaches, NFTs have their data saved on the blockchain and might solely be accessed and up to date by the person who owns them. The result’s a system that inherently permits for optimum privateness and safety, as solely the person proprietor of the data has full management over it.
NFTs have the potential to do rather more than simply change bodily identification, they will additionally streamline and automate most of the processes that at the moment depend on handbook verification. Think about a world the place all authorized paperwork, similar to contracts, automotive titles, and deeds, are represented as NFTs. This may make it exceptionally simple to authenticate a doc and switch possession, eliminating the sensible want for intermediaries similar to attorneys or notaries who at the moment fill this position.
Regardless of being a brand new expertise, there are already a number of examples of NFTs getting used for documentation and verification. Romania is within the technique of creating a system to make use of NFTs as a substitute for present strategies of presidency documentation in an effort to scale back paperwork. Implementation of this new commonplace is not science fiction, it is a readily deployable expertise that has confirmed itself as a superior different to the arcane file conserving procedures of yesteryear.
NFTs even have the potential to revolutionize the best way we doc and retailer a few of our most vital private data, like beginning, marriage, and dying certificates. At the moment, these paperwork are all scattered throughout varied governing establishments, usually throughout a number of states, making them unduly troublesome to entry and confirm. Have been they transformed to a NFT managed system, it will not solely make it simpler for people to entry their very own private data, however it will additionally make it simpler for organizations to confirm the authenticity of a person’s paperwork. Safety and privateness are obtainable with NFTs in a means they’ll by no means be if we proceed to depend on the system Actual ID pursues.
One other potential software of NFTs is within the realm of schooling. At the moment, many academic establishments nonetheless depend on bodily transcripts and levels to confirm the authenticity of a pupil’s academic historical past and infrequently cost to ship these paperwork to any exterior entity by way of snail mail. NFTs may very well be used to exchange this outdated system, making it simple to confirm a pupil’s academic historical past and streamline the method of making use of to school, graduate college, or getting a job.
NFTs are an modern expertise that has the potential to revolutionize our present documentation system. It’s time for us to embrace this new expertise and make the transition from paper-based documentation to a safer and environment friendly digital system that empowers people, not bureaucrats and middlemen.
Nicholas Creel is an assistant professor of enterprise regulation at Georgia School and State College.
Gavin Incrocci is an undergraduate pupil at Georgia School and State College who’s finding out cryptocurrency and cyber-law beneath professor Creel.
The views expressed on this article are the writers’ personal.
