Sharing big data using blockchain technologies in local governments: Some technical, organizational and policy considerations

Governments have vast data resources related to a wide-variety of policies and programs. Integrating and sharing data across agencies and departments can add value to these data resources and bring about significant changes in public services as well as better government decisions. However, in addition to the lack of standards and an adequate information architecture, the main obstacles to a centralized government data-sharing strategy are security and privacy concerns. Blockchain - a decentralized peer-to-peer distributed ledger technology - provides a new way to develop sharing mechanisms. In addition, blockchain-based systems are difficult to tamper with and are highly traceable. Based on the current problems of a big data center in the city of Ningbo, China, this paper identifies limitations of this approach and explores the potential of some data sharing mechanism based on blockchain technology. Our analysis describes some potential advantages and the feasibility of using distributed data sharing and automated management mechanisms based on blockchain smart contracts. We also explore implementation challenges and provide some practical recommendations.