Indian-State Backed Blockchain Centre to Stop Forgery of Educational Certificates

India-state backed institution, Kerala Blockchain Academy (KBA) is implementing the concept of distributed ledger technology to advance and secure the issuance of a certificate within the education sector.

KBA, the first Indian government academic and research institution under the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management – Kerala (IIITM-K), introduced the in-house solution to ensure the authenticity of course certificates earlier this month.

Following the decentralized and tamper-proof nature of blockchain, KBA established a solution that ensures certificates issued by academic institutions are tamper-proof, according to a report by the local news agency, Times of India.

While the use case of blockchain for education is yet to be fully explored, the KBA development aims at combatting the faking and issuance of forged documents relating to the academic qualifications of individuals, as blockchain makes it nearly impossible for job seekers to fake data.

Every certificate comes with a QR code, which will enable employers or students to quickly scan their documents using a mobile phone in order to confirm its authenticity. Also, each certificate features an international identity with a unique timestamp and block number.

The solution, according to a statement by the KBA, is developed with a strong commitment to modify and guarantee transparency in the certification process, without interfering with the candidate’s privacy.

Moving forward, the newly introduced solution is said to initially debut for course certificates of different training programs conducted by KBA, and later on, passed to other academic institutions including universities. The solution also holds benefit to the global job marketplace since it helps employers to streamline the processes involved in confirming an individual’s certificate.

In a similar case report by Coinfomania, GeTS and SCCCI launched a blockchain-based electronic Certificates of Origin (eCOs) platform, to certify the origin of the imported goods. We noted then that the said solution would serve as a source of authenticity to Custom agencies, establish the provenance of products, and ensure a more secure and transparent digital trade economy.