Blockchain is slowly taking off and seems to apply to a lot of different industries. In the state of Illinois, for example, there is currently an experiment going on involving the replacement of physical birth certificate copies using Blockchain. This would give citizens better control over their personal data and removes the inconvenience of waiting for a physical copy to be mailed to them.

This new experiment is part of the initiative called the Illinois Blockchain Initiative, which is basically the state’s attempt at applying the new Blockchain network into its own logistics and governing process. In the announcement post regarding the birth certificate experiment, the state revealed that it was partnering with a company called Evernym to make it a reality.

“In the proposed framework, government agencies will verify birth registration information and then cryptographically sign identity attributes such as legal name, date of birth, sex or blood type, creating what are called “verifiable claims” or attributes,” the post reads.

“Permission to view or share each of these government-verified claims is stored on the tamper-proof distributed ledger protocol in the form of a decentralized identifier. The identifier guarantees each attribute is cryptographically sealed and only accessible with explicit consent of the identity holder or in the case of a newborn child, his or her legal guardian.”

As Futurism notes, this setup is very similar to how the Blockchain network could be used to share information between hospitals regarding patient files. These are only a few examples of how the entire network or even just the concept of it could apply to varying, yet just as essential industries.

Other countries are starting to implement their own experiments using Blockchain, as well, including Brazil and the UK. These types of trials are important in weeding out potential errors and problems caused by storing information on a more digitized format, as well.