HBR Insights Web3, Crypto, and Blockchain Collection (3 Books)

 

15

USING BLOCKCHAIN TO KEEP PUBLIC DATA PUBLIC

by Brian Forde

A few months after he took office, President Trump’s administration made a change to the White House website. The site’s digital updates are often small and insignificant—updating a photo, fixing a broken link—and therefore may go unnoticed. But this one was different, and it could have an impact on every single American. The update eliminated the White House’s open data.¹

On the surface, those nine gigabytes of data sets may seem inconsequential: They include White House visitor logs, the titles and salaries of every White House employee, and government budget data. But that information helps to ensure transparency in government. It helps reporters and citizens figure out who ...