Documentation Authentication Using Blockchain

Executive Summary

Validating the authenticity of academic certificates of individuals is always an arduous task. It generally involves reaching out to the certificate authorizing bodies (e.g. Colleges/Universities/ Institutions) and following protocols, which are unlikely to be similar, to seek the information needed.Needless to say, it requires reasonable amount of time and effort to accomplish the ends.

Blockchain can be applied to resolve the bottlenecks related to the delays, that are an intrinsic part of the process, by creating a repository of certificates. The process would involve storing the fingerprint of a given document, i.e. a certificate in this case, and some metadata related to it in the database. Subsequently, at any given point in time, the authenticity of a certificate can be determined by querying the blockchain using the fingerprint of that certificate and determining whether there exists in the database a similar document.