George Orwell’s Blockchain, The UK’s Plans For Blockchain Surveillance Straight Out Of 1984


Let’s face it, in all its democracy, the blockchain does give authorities the power to abuse its technology in order to turn a dystopian projection such as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four into a dark and realistic prospect. And it looks like the UK government are wanting to just that.

Take the ‘Big Brother’ theory, and add the blockchain, The Big Blockchains Watching You.

To quote Orwell in the famous Nineteen Eighty-Four:



You might be asking what this is all about? Well, according to The Next Web, in a recent publication by HM Courts and Tribunal Service (a branch of the UK Government) a Technology Fellow at Imperial College London, Dr. Sadek Ferdous has made a presentation that outlines a concept for a blockchain based digital evidence trail.

According to The Next Web, Dr. Ferdous refers his vision for a blockchain future as:

“A chronological record of system activities which capture how digital evidence has been created/accessed/modified by which entity, from what location, in such a way to enable the reconstruction and examination of the sequence of events, and actions leading to the current state of the digital evidence.”

This has been referred to as a solution for a traditional challenge and honestly, it stinks of dictatorship.

How will this work?

The idea is to use blockchain technology as a way of storing data on our movements (via things like CCTV, GPS etc) that could be used as evidence at a later date to settle a range of different scenarios. If you’ve ever seen the recent film Anon, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Can it work?

In theory yes, but do the government really think the citizens of the UK will allow such a thing to happen? Whilst blockchain technology can indeed be used in this way, it can also be subverted and reverted, it won’t take much for people to introduce counter measures to such a dystopian idea. So, yes, it can work but honestly, I don’t think it’s a very realistic plan.

Sorry government, but get back to sorting out Brexit and leave the blockchain out of it.


The Next Web

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