Government urged to use Bitcoin-style digital ledgers, could help issue land registry property title deeds
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A range of government departments could benefit from blockchains, the chief scientific adviser has said The UK's chief scientific adviser has urged the government to adopt the technology that powers crypto-currency Bitcoin to run various public services. Bitcoins are powered by blockchains - digital ledgers that record information from Bitcoin transactions to DNA. Sir Mark Walport has argued that they could be used by government departments as a more secure way of managing data. They could be used to help with tax collection, benefits or the issuing of passports, he has said. Blockchains consist of "blocks" of data in a digital ledger. Copies of these ledgers are shared by all the computers that access them, meaning they are distributed across the network. Because blockchains act as permanent records of every time that data is added to them, they are thought to be highly resistant to malicious tampering...