The potential of document verification and the guarantee of its inalterability in a federal and non-profit environment increasingly attracts public organizations, academics and private companies to the Blockchain Federal Argentina (BFA) (Argentine Federal Blockchain). Interest in the platform, which had a sort of "standstill" in the government transition at the end of 2019, has increased since the start of the pandemic, due to the need to endorse bureaucratic procedures, and the provinces of Formosa and Catamarca will join in the next two months to the only two public administrations that currently use the BFA, the City of Buenos Aires and Neuquén.

Among its many applications (see below), the Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina (BORA)(Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic) is being sealed at the BFA, with record visit rates for the constant publication of regulations on confinement. Marcelo Funes, National Director of the Internet Domain Registration at NIC Argentina (member of the BFA Board of Directors), told Convergencialatina that prior to the health emergency, only some BORA publications were sealed, but now there are publications during the weekends national holidays and daily frequency supplements, in which the inalterability of the texts became crucial. “The BFA creates a layer of transparency to add to the processes of state agencies. We are in talks with the Digital Country area to add Blockchain to circulation permits", he confided.

Among the 57 active members of the platform (at the end of June), about 25 are sealers (that is, with the right to record an unalterable “block” in the BFA), such as NIC Argentina, Senasa, the Superintendency of Insurance of the Nation, the Naval Prefecture, the Ministry of Education, the General Inspectorate of Justice. One of the private actors that fulfill this function is Red Link, that decided to participate in the BFA as part of the proofs of concept that it has been facing with different types of Blockchain. Martín Rodríguez, innovation manager of the financial institution, described the incursion into the platform as a "strategic issue" to be in contact with the ecosystem. In 2019 they did about five proofs of concept internally, to show the usefulness of Blockchain, but they have not yet developed a specific use case.

This ecosystem to which Rodríguez refers can be found in the BFA community gathered in a group of Telegram, in which about 183 members participate. As new stakeholders who could join in the coming months are the Agencia e Administración de Bienes del Estado (AABE) (State Property Administration Agency), Aysa, PAMI and the National House of Representatives.

Neuquén, one step further. The representations of provincial governments in the BFA are scarce so far, but they present the greatest advances in terms of use. In particular, the case of Neuquén stands out, which accessed the BFA as a complement to its Integrability Ecosystem, developed five years ago based on the Estonian e-government model. It uses the XRoad data exchange platform, following Blockchain principles, to avoid that the same data is requested more than once in government procedures: almost 60% of the procedures are already carried out on this system, said Ángel Rojas, director of Planning and Development of the Oficina Provincial de Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (Optic) (Provincial Office of Information and Communication Technologies).

“It is essential to participate in the BFA because the information we issue abroad is legitimized -for example, the Official Gazette-. Although the BFA method places a hash that ensures that a document is unalterable, it does not resolve the origin of the data. The source and quality of the data is what we resolve with XRoad, which determines that the information we access is the only one that exists”, he described.

Neuquén opted for a combination of strengths: on the one hand, the authenticity of the source that generated the data (XRoad), and on the other, the application of this compliance hash in the BFA. With more than 6.3 million transactions carried out in the last five years, the province's model is analyzed in other jurisdictions to replicate it as a public information ecosystem.

Use cases

-Government of the City of Buenos Aires: The “Carpeta Ciudadana” (Citizen Folder) solution is a repository of the neighbor's digital documents issued by that public administration and related entities (training certificates, secondary titles, birth certificates, marriage certificates, among others ). Citizens access this folder from the MiBA app.

-Superintendence of Work Risks: Modification of policies after their publication and verification date.

-Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology: The digitalization of the diploma and analytical certification process ends with the incorporation of graduates to the Registry, so that the BFA becomes the only public repository that allows authenticating the veracity of the documentation issued by Argentine university institutions.

-Argentina Naval Prefecture: Daily list of river height measurements. Thanks to the BFA they are available as an input for other actors related to maritime transport.

-CABA College of Notaries: The Digital Notarial Documents System (GEDONO) streamlines the validation of digital notary documents. It allows citizens and institutions to verify all digital notarial documents received at the College.