Title: Designing a blockchain-based citizen identification document authentication: the case of Addis Ababa city administration

Authors: Tibebe Beshah; Yonas Engida

Addresses: School of Information Science, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ' Software Engineering Program, CPU Business and Information Technology College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract: In Ethiopia, social services are mostly dependent on Kebele identification number (KIN). Unfortunately, some serious concerns originate from the ineffective management of citizen profiles, which encourages the production of forged documents. Forging critical documents, such as KIN, results in a person having many IDs and contributes significantly to corruption. Thus, it is necessary to study viable methods for protecting IDs from counterfeiting. Blockchain technology can play a critical role in resolving the such problem. In this study, we created and built private blockchain-based citizen identity authentication system realised using hyperledger fabric on the IBM cloud environment. The proposed model is validated using mutual authentication, to ensure privacy, secrecy, and integrity. It is justified that the model is secure and that it is the best option for resolving the problem as all the actors in the proposed model are authenticated, authorised, and auditable as well as traceable.

Keywords: blockchain; Kebele ID; authentication; Addis Ababa; Ethiopia; hyper-ledger; identity; Kebele identification number; KIN; social services; citizen.

DOI: 10.1504/EG.2024.138157

Electronic Government, an International Journal, 2024 Vol.20 No.3, pp.260 - 276

Received: 13 Dec 2021
Accepted: 12 Jun 2022
Published online: 30 Apr 2024 *

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