The Australian Senate Committee recommended blockchain technology to help in restraining the importation of forced labor goods.
The committee advised the government to consider taking action to strengthen the Australian Border Force so it can be able to issue rebuttable presumptions for specific goods. To do so, investigating technologies should be taken into account. They can help in tracking the origin of goods along supply chains and stop imports produced by slave labor.
“Professor Leibold and Ms Munro called for the government to investigate the possible role of new technologies ‘such as isotope, microbiome, blockchain and other tracing technologies’ can play to empower ‘companies and governments to more efficiently and effectively trace their supply chains.”
‘Customs Amendment (Banning Goods Produced By Uyghur Forced Labour) Bill 2020’
The Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade Committee published a report on Thursday titled ‘Customs Amendment (Banning Goods Produced By Uyghur Forced Labour) Bill 2020’. The paper includes 14 recommendations from broadening the legislation to empowering the country’s border force.
“This is not a matter that can be delayed. The Chinese Communist Party’s oppression of the Uyghur people is an immediate and continuing affront to human decency. It requires an immediate response, not a protracted process of government review that may lead to legislative and administrative action in two or three years time.”
Senator Rex Patrick
But what is blockchain technology?
The concept of blockchain was envisioned by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta in 1991. They began working on a cryptographically secured series of blocks where no one could interfere with timestamps. But the biggest turn came in 2008, thanks to Satoshi Nakamoto, who applied this technology in the implementation of Bitcoin.
Blockchain is based on a peer-to-peer network and is a distributed ledger that allows the registering of transactions globally. Every block of the chain contains several transactions, and each time one happens it is recorded on the ledger of all the members. Participants can access and manage the information in real-time, making it difficult for someone to gain control over the network.
