The ethics team at IAP, led by Dr. Stephen Boulter, has identified three major areas of ethical concern that we want to have at the forefront of our thinking. The societal consequences of the widespread roll out of distributed ledger technology (DLT) across the global economy Major technological innovations, of which Blockchain is a conspicuous example, typically have disruptive consequences as the economy adjusts to new ways of doing things. Making sure the global economy is able to secure the benefits of the new technology while mitigating the inevitable disruption is a challenge all responsible Blockchain based enterprises need to take seriously.

“The original idea of the world wide web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information." — Tim Berners-Lee “The more we can organize, find and manage information, the more effectively we can function in our modern world." — Vint Cerf The quotations that this article opens with are from two of the founding fathers of the internet. If Tim Berners-Lee’s statement captures the functional intent of the internet revolution, then Vint Cerf’s captures its ethical intent.

In the third of our guest articles from IAP’s partners, Paul Ashburn, the Co-Managing Partner of BDO Thailand discusses why BDO chose to partner with the IAP Network. BDO is the 5th largest network of accounting firms in the world. One of our largest service lines is in auditing, which involves attesting to financial information and forming an opinion on it. We believe that blockchain technology is going to dramatically disrupt the auditing side of accounting practices.

In the second of our guest articles from the IAP’s partners, Christopher Mosby, the CIO of Movaci discusses why they chose to partner with the IAP. Founded in 2009, Movaci is now trusted by businesses and organizations in more than 30 countries for whom we provide IT solutions, support and security. Our services and solutions enable our clients to operate more efficiently, securely, and to more readily achieve their goals.

As a platform seeking to provide blockchain-based solutions to the world’s most pressing information security challenges, data privacy represents a prime use case for the IAP. Meanwhile, Blockliance, the first application to be built on the IAP seeks to provide more cost-effective ways for businesses to comply with regulations. Therefore, as a regulation that is aimed directly at data privacy, the roll out of GDPR — the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation — has been something we have been following very closely.