Blockchain as An Evidence: China Implements Legaltech in Court System
TechnologyBit News Today1 min read
In September 2018, China made blockchain records admissible in legal proceedings after the Supreme Court officially acknowledged that such evidence was acceptable. The ruling, which came into effect immediately, clarified how internet courts in China should review legal disputes, particularly those involving digital evidence.
The SPC's new rules outlined various methods for authenticating electronic evidence, including electronic signatures, time stamps, hash value verification, and blockchain.
These legal changes are part of a broader effort by China to streamline the handling of internet-related disputes. In August 2017, China established its first internet court in Hangzhou to handle online disputes that generally involve digital data. The court, equipped with technology allowing parties to litigate entirely online, recorded an average court time of just 25 minutes. After the Hangzhou court functioned as a test case, the Supreme People's Court set up two additional internet courts in Beijing and Guangzhou in September 2018.
A copyright infringement case decided by the Hangzhou internet court in June 2018 demonstrated the practical application of blockchain evidence. In this case, a media company, Huatai Yimei, sued a technology firm, Dautong, for unauthorized republication of an article. Huatai used a blockchain-based evidence deposition platform, Baoquan.com, to store screenshots and source codes as evidence.
The court scrutinized Baoquan.com's qualifications and found it a neutral, third-party electronic evidence platform. The platform automatically compresses and packages screenshots and source code from target web pages, storing their encrypted hash values on the FACTOM and Bitcoin blockchains. The court confirmed the consistency of the hash values between the evidence submitted by Huatai and those on the blockchains, thus validating the authenticity of the blockchain evidence.
However, the legal process remains complex, involving detailed scrutiny of evidence platforms and cryptographic verification.
