Blockchain Working Group at Polish Ministry of Digitalization

Sin­ce the launch of «Social Machi­ne» pro­ject I’ve been obse­rving the pro­ce­edings of Block­cha­in and DLT Wor­king Gro­up, orga­ni­zed and coor­di­na­ted by Polish Mini­stry of Digi­ta­li­za­tion. The sum­mer slow­down is a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to take a brief look at the work of the Gro­up so far.

Łukasz Jonak, Ana­li­tyk DELab UW

The Wor­king Gro­up is a forum for vario­us sta­ke­hol­ders of the intro­duc­tion of block­cha­in tech­no­lo­gy to Polish eco­no­mic and social eco­sys­tem to discuss the­ir view points and pro­du­ce recom­men­da­tions abo­ut how to mana­ge block­cha­ins and DLTs at the level of the sta­te. The actu­al work of the Gro­up takes pla­ce in a num­ber of sub­com­mit­te­es – from finan­cial (actu­al­ly the­re are two of tho­se) to scien­ti­fic and edu­ca­tio­nal. The mem­bers of the gro­up come from vario­us back­gro­unds, the most impor­tant of which seem to be:

  • Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of public admi­ni­stra­tion, espe­cial­ly the regu­la­to­ry bodies (such as Polish Finan­cial Super­vi­sion Autho­ri­ty – KNF); ulti­ma­te­ly, the poli­cy makers when it comes to blockchains

  • Com­pa­nies buil­ding solu­tions and servi­ces based on block­cha­in tech­no­lo­gies – the custo­dians of tech­ni­cal know­led­ge abo­ut the featu­res and oppor­tu­ni­ties of DLTs

  • Major poten­tial insti­tu­tio­nal users of block­cha­in servi­ces, both rela­ted to the sta­te (eg. War­saw Stock Exchan­ge) and pri­va­te (eg. The Polish Bank Asso­cia­tion, major insu­ran­ce companies)

  • Vario­us other inte­rest and occu­pa­tion gro­ups: real esta­te lawy­ers and experts, doctors and health servi­ce mana­gers, scien­ti­sts and educators

Most con­tro­ver­sies have been iden­ti­fied by the com­mit­te­es rela­ted to the finan­cial appli­ca­tion of block­cha­in tech­no­lo­gies and dealing with the mana­ge­ment of iden­ti­ties and secu­ring use­r’s pri­va­cy. In case of finan­cial appli­ca­tions the main points discus­sed were:

  • The sta­tus of tokens in the con­text of exi­sting law. Can they be secu­ri­ties (or can secu­ri­ties be toke­ni­zed)? An if so, would resul­ting regu­la­to­ry pres­su­re obli­te­ra­te the­ir poten­tial for buil­ding inno­va­ti­ve busi­ness models and finan­cial services?

  • How to respon­si­bly expe­ri­ment with new finan­cial models affor­ded by block­cha­in tech­no­lo­gies. Vario­us ide­as and pro­jects are being pro­po­sed, such as regu­la­to­ry sand­box, or poten­tial toke­ni­za­tion of assets at the new pri­va­te mar­ket being cre­ated at War­saw Stock Exchange.

The com­mit­tee discus­sing pri­va­cy, iden­ti­ty, AML and KYC issu­es faces the urgent need of inter­pre­ting EU Gene­ral Data Pro­tec­tion Regu­la­tion (GDPR) and its Polish imple­men­ta­tion. Specifically:

  • Who is to be con­si­de­red data admi­ni­stra­tor in case of distri­bu­ted public block­cha­ins. Is it legal­ly possi­ble to sta­te that the­re are no such entities?

  • How to enfor­ce the „right to be for­got­ten” on block­cha­ins, given that immu­ta­bi­li­ty is one of the­ir con­sti­tu­ti­ve features?

The incom­pa­ti­bi­li­ty of major legi­sla­tion acts with the reali­ty of block­cha­in tech­no­lo­gies seems to be obvio­us when obse­rving the pro­ce­edings of the Gro­up. One of the main tasks of the mem­bers in the weeks to come seems to be the­re­fo­re to pro­po­se ways to inter­pret exi­sting regu­la­tions so that they actu­al­ly allow the appli­ca­tion of block­cha­in tech­no­lo­gies to the gre­atest possi­ble extent and to sug­gest new legi­sla­tion ide­as more ali­gned with block­cha­in technologies.

Autor pro­jek­tu: Łukasz Jonak

Pro­jekt finan­so­wa­ne ze środ­ków pro­gra­mu „Dia­log” MNiSW

Scroll to Top