Blockchain-Based Secure Storage For Property Registration

Data on land ownership registration is compassionate, and in the digital age, it must be kept complying with the highest security standards, something increasingly complicated and expensive. For this reason, a group of Malaysian researchers has developed a framework for storing this type of database that guarantees the inviolability of information thanks to blockchain technology.

If blockchains can provide something, it is protection and the ability to verify the authenticity of the data to all parties involved in each transaction of digital information. Therefore, blockchain technology finds beneficial applications in many sectors where confidential information is shared that must be protected and whose authenticity must be verified. Finance is a good example, with obvious use cases already being regulated by the authorities of regions such as the European Community.

But there are many other potential uses, and one of them is to guarantee the security and integrity of the data on the land ownership registry. It is information that must be kept with the most significant protection, but which at the same time must be accessible to different parties, both regulators and other administrations, owners, and those who want to consult public information about the property, for example, potential buyers.

This is a scenario in which blockchain technology can provide practical and very secure solutions. For example, a team of researchers from the University of Malaysia, in Johor Bahru (Malaysia), has developed a framework for storing registry databases of land ownership based on blockchains. This provides a more suitable approach for information that, in many cases, is decentralized at the base, which represents a perfect environment for the application of blockchains.

Their article published in the IEEE Xplore journal explains that many land registry databases suffer from problems on several fronts. On the one hand, unstructured data cannot be integrated appropriately into conventional databases. On the other hand, non-relational databases are used, which are not designed for the complexity and security that property registration requires.

This increases the risk of fraud in all or in one or more of the parts that make up the registry of a particular property, including from the owner’s name to the extension, location, and other characteristics included in each of the registered properties. In addition, it complicates any modification that you want to make in the registry of a property, which puts at risk from the guarantees for the owners to the land sale operations.

These researchers propose a new framework for the secure storage of land registry data based on blockchain. This provides a decentralized, transparent, fast, and much more efficient environment when making any queries or changes. Considering how backward most of today’s environments are, this system is far better suited to providing the security and operational capabilities required in the digital age. It has the potential to radically change the way you work with data in the systems used for property registration.