US Customs and Border Protection Agency to Use Blockchain For Certificate Verification

BTC Wires: The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is planning to try out blockchain for the accurate verification of certificates of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and of the CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement). As per reports by the America Shipper, Vincent Annunziato, who serves as the head of the Division of Business Transformation and Innovation in the US CBP stated that their agency was starting to conduct a “live fire testing” of a blockchain platform to make sure the certification of all the products that had been imported matched the claims that they had made during the Trade Symposium of 2018 that CBP conducted in Atlanta.

This system is due to be launched in the month of September and will be used by the CBP to aid it in the process of verifying data about goods imported. This will also help see how suppliers from abroad act towards American importers and to see check whether trademarks are authentic and if all physical properties are intact. As Annunziato continued, this system even makes it possible to seek information on minute physical properties of the imported goods, like the stitch or colour of a fabric. The system can be easily used through the use of a mobile application that will make for a paperless verification procedure to substitute the usual manual process on paper. This will naturally make the organization’s work much smoother and simpler. He further commented on the agency’s workings with the COAC or the Commercial Customs Advisory Committee. Last November,COAC had established a special group to give advice to the Secretaries of Treasure and Homeland Security about the agency’s commercial work. That body had taken a great deal of interest in new forms of technology, with a special emphasis on blockchain in particular.

This week, the statement from the CBP official confirmed to us that that the committee is also attempting to come up with a proof-of-concept blockchain platform that would confirm agreements between licensees and licensors and thereby verify the intellectual property rights. It is hoped that this would help the CBP to completely do away with all paper-based operations, including all manuals and databases. Although the CBP Press Office has not made a specific statement, Annunziato’s remarks are an exciting enough confirmation that the agency is taking to blockchain.

Kapil Gauhar

Kapil Gauhar is the founder of Blogger’s Gyan. He is a Passionate Blogger, a Big Thinker and a Creative Writer. His passion for doing friendship with words and letting people know about the wonders of the Digital World is what motivates him to take writing as a career.