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January 2020
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
irregularities during land registration, but these new regula-
tions were also vulnerable to manipulation, including de facto
counterfeiting. For this reason, they have agreed with Factom
to implement a Blockchain-based system (Lemieux, 2017).
Another Blockchain land registration project was imple-
mented in the Rio Grande do Sul Province of Brazil, Pelotas
Municipalities, and Morro Redondo between May and July
2017 by Ubitquity. The aim of the project was to create a pilot
program for official land registration in the region, to reduce
costs, and to increase the accuracy, security and transpar-
ency of land records. Before this system was implemented,
the transfer of ownership was carried out in 13 steps. In ex-
plaining the pilot, Ubitquity CEO Nathan Wosnack said they
would carry out the Blockchain solution in a fair and trans-
parent manner to address property and land disputes, with
the intention that the system will prevent fraud in land reg-
istration. (Lemieux, 2017). After evaluating the data obtained
through the Blockchain application, errors in the registration
system were reduced and there has been a significant ease in
archiving (Allison, 2018).
Sweden is another country that has moved its land registra-
tion processes into a Blockchain-based system. In the “World
Bank Business Index” data, Sweden is among the most accu-
rate in the world for property registration, so its move toward
Blockchain technology was not due to fraud or irregularity in
its processes as in Brazil and Honduras. The cadastral opera-
tions are done separately but integrated with each other. The
transfer process is completed in seven steps, and a notary law-
yer does not participate in the project. The pilot project data
was collected between July and October 2017. And the appli-
cation developed by Chromaway is still in use (Lemieux, 2017).
The user interface of the application is seen in Figure 2.
With the success of the practice in Sweden, Ukraine an-
nounced in October 2017 that it will transport the country’s
land registration system to Blockchain in order to provide
transparency in the processes (“Ukrainian Blockchain Land
Registry,” 2018). In a similar fashion Andre Pradesh, a state
in India, announced in October 2017 that the land registra-
tion system of Chromaway will also be used for a pilot (“Indi-
an Blockchain Land Registry,” 2018).
Considering that the technology is relatively new and the
application includes many different stakeholders, the specific
uses require time to reach maturity. Even with the advan-
tages of the application, clarifying any risks such as the fact
that the data may be used as legal evidence after a lengthy
period, is of great importance to ensure the continuity of the
system. . These issues are mostly subject to regional regu-
lations and their implementation architecture, and a single
solution in the international market is not realistic. The local
laws of all countries differ; and, as a result, there is a need to
make local specialization. When the projects completed so far
are examined, we expect to say that the application offered
Figure 2. A Screenshot of Chromaway Land Registry Application (“ChromaWay Land Registry,” 2018).
