The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded USD 143,478 to Danube Tech, based in Vienna, to develop blockchain security solutions.
Silicon Valley Innovation Program
On September 26, the Department of Science and Technology (S&T) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the United States announced in a press release that Danube Tech received a contract to help the department in its ongoing fight against counterfeiting of Certificates and licenses.
The press release notes that services such as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration, and Citizenship and Immigration Services can benefit from blockchain-based security solutions, adding:
Current issuance processes are usually paper-based, do not facilitate the exchange of data and its use between systems and could be susceptible to loss, destruction, falsification, and alteration. S&T is exploring the application of the blockchain and DLT to issue credentials digitally in order to improve security, ensure interoperability, and prevent counterfeiting.
The award is funded through the S&T Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP), which is a program that finances private sector partners to promote security solutions for DHS. Companies that participate in SVIP can receive up to USD 800,000 to develop and adapt commercial technologies for national security use cases.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service blockchain test
Cointelegraph reported in August that the CBP advisory committee conducted tests of its “Proof of Intellectual Property Rights Concept” based on blockchain, which is an attempt to ship through the blockchain, based on pre-existing relationships between the Licensor and sublicensee.
The CBP already conducted a test for a blockchain-based maritime transport project in August 2018, which was a combination of the application inherited from the CBP and a platform based on a blockchain developed by DHS.
