Brazil issues its first Blockchain-based birth certificate

Brazil, geographically the 5th largest country in the world has released its first birth certificate generated through Blockchain-based technology. Alvaro de Medeiros Mendonca becomes the first child in the whole of Brazil to possess a Blockchain generated birth certificate. According to reports, the father of Alvaro, Waldyr Mendonca Junior, was invited by the hospital to be part of the initiative. The project thus makes Alvaro the first child to be a beneficiary of this Blockchain-based project. 

Mendonca Junior observed that the Blockchain process of recording and issuing birth certificate is timesaving and convenient. He further stated that the process took him less than five minutes to complete. This saved him the hassle and protracted process associated with doing the same at the birth registry offices.

The issuing of a birth certificate using Blockchain technology in Brazil is the result of the collaborative effort of two technology firms. The international tech leader IBM, and a local technology firm Growth Tech partnered to make this innovative decentralized system of issuing birth certificate a reality.  In the partnership, Growth Tech is majorly tasked with using its Notary Ledger platform. The platform will provide virtual notary services. It is as a result entrusted with ensuring proper execution of the digitally generated documents during the registration process.

The project to do away with the bureaucratic process that characterizes the process of obtaining a birth certificate in Brazil 

Reportedly, the birth registration process involves three significant steps. Step one involves the issuing of a “Live Birth Statement” to the family of the child by the hospital. In the second step, the parents of the newborn create a digital identity on the ledger platform. The third and last step entails sending of the relevant information to the notary office. The notary office then automatically finalizes the birth certificate issuing process.

The Head of IBM’s Blockchain Department in Latin America, Carlos Rischioto, in a statement translated from Latin, on commenting about the initiative is quoted to have said:

 “The goal of these solutions is to bring speed, efficiency, transparency, and increasingly eliminate the steps, especially bureaucratic, in business process”