Blockchain and Machine Learning Will Help Government Improve Document Flow
The government is discussing ways to improve document management. One of the solutions could be the transfer of interdepartmental workflow to the blockchain or any other secure system for remote information exchange, as well as the use of machine learning technology. It is a subclass of artificial intelligence that is capable of learning based on given parameters. The use of both fashionable technologies is being discussed by the "smart economy" working group under the Ministry of Economic Development. Izvestia managed to get acquainted with the plan of its work.
The department of Maxim Oreshkin is seriously working on a plan to increase economic growth rates above the world average until 2025. 10 working groups have been created in the ministry, one of them is “smart economy”. Its tasks include digital reform of the government, where the exchange of any information is still on paper, which hinders the promotion of any initiatives. At the same time, corporate technologies of management and information exchange have gone far ahead.
In particular, the working group is discussing the possibility of preparing draft regulatory legal acts, making changes to them and storing them in special registries based on blockchain (distributed data storage technology that ensures data safety and reliable protection), according to the group's tasks. Now each ministry has its own electronic database, and, for example, officials of the Ministry of Energy cannot learn about the initiatives of the Ministry of Finance through it.
A software algorithm can also be created for working with documents, including using the equally fashionable machine learning technology.
As Vladimir Yuzhakov, director of the Center for Public Administration Technologies at the Institute for Applied Economic Research of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Vladimir Yuzhakov, explained to Izvestia, the use of machine learning in the civil service may imply that the first versions of bills will be developed by special machines.
- The parameters of the law are set, and then the technician prepares his draft in his own mode. Further, specialists are already starting to work with this draft, - said Vladimir Yuzhakov.
Special rules will be developed for the use of blockchain and machine learning mechanisms in government and the Russian economy, according to the materials of the working group. There will also be special rules for the placement, access and use of government data, including open ones
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- At the meeting of the working group on the digital economy, the required amount for the creation of the government archive was not discussed. The Ministry of Finance did not comment at the meeting, - explained one of the participants in the working group.
Also, the government wants to optimize the terms and procedures for the preparation of regulatory legal acts and form a system of traceability of their history: from development to adoption. Civil servants will have to interact strictly in a paperless manner, the tasks emphasize.
According to Vladimir Yuzhakov, the use of blockchain and machine learning in the civil service is advisable.
- The creation of such systems in the civil service makes sense. There is a hope that this will improve the quality of lawmaking and will allow more reliable implementation of the requirements for the quality of laws. Third parties, or at least those directly affected by the law, should be able to participate in this process, - said Vladimir Yuzhakov. - There are general rules for relations in the civil service, they are used regardless of technology: paper or digital. There are special standard regulations for government interagency interaction, and there are many other rules. They were and will remain. Digital technologies will only change the way this data is used, - Vladimir Yuzhakov is sure.
Igor Nikolaev, director of the FBK Institute for Strategic Analysis, believes that new technologies are applicable in the civil service, but the problem of the quality of government documents will remain.
- I think that all this is applicable in the civil service. But that is not the problem of preparing normative legal acts. The problem is in their content. And this is not solved by digital technologies. The quality of documents depends directly on the employees, - says Igor Nikolaev.
The order of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Economic Development to consider the possibility of using blockchain technology in government and the economy was given by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. According to him, blockchain technology can help get rid of unnecessary bureaucratization of business turnover.
The press service of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade confirmed to Izvestia that the department is working on possible changes in the work of rule-making.
- In terms of the possibility of revising and optimizing the procedure for the development, adoption and application of regulatory legal acts, the Ministry of Economic Development is working on an order aimed at optimizing the rule-making process and its transfer to a single information platform. It is assumed that after agreement with the key participants, it will be reflected in the 2017-2025 plan, which will provide for a set of measures for the implementation of these changes, the press service of the department reported.
reference
Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence that studies algorithms that can learn on their own, without having to directly program them to solve a specific problem.
Blockchain is a technology for storing and protecting information using distributed databases. It is based on a continuously extended chain of digital records. Data cannot be deleted from the blockchain, it is stored simultaneously by all participants in the chain, and all records are automatically updated to the latest version with each change.