Challenge

The PIO project Blockchain on the Move (BotM) aspired to provide citizens with a 'Self-Managed Identity' or 'Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI)' via Blockchain technology that they can use in their interaction with governments, other (public) organisations or companies. Central to this were the deployment of new technologies (including Blockchain), offering citizens more freedom of choice and control in their contact with the government, and giving them ownership of their own data.

The BotM initiators also wanted to develop the concept of a 'digital safe for citizens'. Within that concept, citizens can manage their data themselves and grant access to it to third parties. The first application (or 'use case') envisaged here was the registration of relocation data in the digital safe, so that citizens can (fully) complete the complex (administrative) relocation process digitally via their SSI.

The major challenge (and 'innovation') of BotM was in effectively putting control and management of one's data in the hands of citizens. In that challenge of (citizen) self-management of identity, certificates and digital keys, important steps still need to be taken internationally and further research is needed. The BotM initiators wanted to go along with this and help find innovative solutions to handle citizen-government data and transactions securely and transparently.

The BotM project framed itself within an efficient and customer-friendly government that puts the citizen at the centre of its services and also makes him the owner of his data. This fitted within both the European privacy regulatory framework (GDPR) and the Flemish policy framework ('Wendbare Overheid' and 'Vlaanderen Radicaal Digitaal').