China’s Supreme Court announced that blockchain technology can now be officially used to authenticate evidence in legal disputes.
A revolutionary news is breaking ground – China’s Supreme Court legalized the use of blockchain technology for evidence authentification, noting that it is binding in legal disputes. The groundbreaking news became known today, on September 7, 2018.
The new regulation officially comes in force immediately together with more comprehensive rules related to legal disputes for China’s Internet courts. The main idea is that Internet courts should begin to recognize the legality of blockchain as a method for storing and authenticating digital evidence.
As the Supreme Court mentioned in the announcement:
“The parties and other participants in the litigation shall electronically process the litigation materials such as the identification certificate, the copy of the business license, the power of attorney, the legal representative’s identity certificate, and the evidence materials such as documentary evidence, appraisal opinions, and transcripts by means of technical means. Submitted, after being approved by the Internet Court, is deemed to meet the original form requirements. If the other party objects to the authenticity of the above materials and has reasonable grounds, the Internet court shall require the parties to provide the original. ”
Moreover, the digital data submitted by the parties can prove their authenticity through any electronic way of confirmation:
“The electronic data submitted by the parties can prove their authenticity through electronic signature, trusted time stamp, hash value check, blockchain and other evidence collection, fixed and tamper-proof technical means or through electronic forensic evidence platform certification. The Internet court should confirm. The parties may apply to someone with expertise to comment on electronic data technology issues. The Internet court may, based on the application of the party or ex officio, entrust the verification of the authenticity of the electronic data or obtain other relevant evidence for verification.”
The new regulation came in response to various questions that have emerged since the country established its first Internet court in Hangzhou last year, which handles disputes around Internet-based issues, generally involving digital data.
Despite the fact that China has been taking crypto activities down since September 2017, when ICO ban was announced, the Chinese government continued investing into blockchain technology projects pouring billions of dollars in blockchain-related developments.
So, the country still remains among the leaders in the field, being ranked number one globally in the total number of blockchain patents with the Central Bank of the People’s Republic of China (PBoC) alone having 41 patents to its name. One of such examples is “Bay Area Trade Finance Blockchain Platform” backed by PBoC, which currently undergoes its testing phase.
As it can be seen for now, blockchain technology is beginning to be legaly recognized. In case it won’t stop in the future, blockchain technology has a great potential of becoming a major disruptive force to the legal sphere.
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