For the first time, a Brazilian couple registered their marriage in a blockchain. The certificate was validated by notaries before executing the digital signature.
A couple got married in Brazil and registered their stable union through the IBM blockchain. The act was conducted by the local company Growth Tech, a startup that offers digital records using the aforementioned platform, through its Notary Ledgers network.
The Brazilian division of IBM reported last Monday, December 16th, through a blog post that the marriage between Guilherme Mesquita, doctor of the Air Force, and Diego Vale, public defender, was celebrated on November 11th in the city of Rio de Janeiro.
The note highlights that, as part of the legal process for the certificate, it was validated by two notaries before it was digitally signed. Likewise, the text indicates that the document certifying the union is available on the digital platform after about 20 minutes of its registration.
The Notary Ledgers network is composed of several registry offices in the South American country, which adds legal validity to the certifications issued by the organization. Among the services offered by this company, death, purchase and sale, and real estate records are the most prominent. In addition, they offer birth records.
During the marriage process, Growth Tech created a digital identity for the couple. For Guilherme Mesquita, one of the members of the couple, the digital registry is “a mechanism that increases the reliability of the process.” According to Mesquita, this trust is particularly provided by the possibility of verifying the authenticity of the certificate online.
This is considered to be a great step towards optimizing bureaucratic processes. Probably, in the future, we will be able to do everything from home, without schedules and without physical structures.
For Hugo Pierre, CEO and founder of Growth Tech, this registration is a sign of the security, feasibility and trust that the use of a blockchain provides for this type of process. In the same way, Pierre considered that Brazilian bodies and organizations should join forces for a large-scale adoption of such mechanisms that are aimed at simplifying processes.
Other Marriages in Blockchains
Local Brazilian media reported that it is the first stable union registered through a blockchain in the South American country. However, it is not the first case in the world. In fact, it is not the first same-sex marriage registered in a blockchain, but the preceding one was not legal.
In the middle of 2018, the launch of a platform that focused precisely on facilitating the registration of same-sex marriages using a blockchain was announced.
The “Unlocked Marriage” initiative was launched by the Swedish sportswear company Björn, with the intention of facilitating the union of same-sex couples living in places where gay marriage is not legalized. In other words, the platform would allow the symbolic registration of these unions.
The event that was previously registered in Brazil was that of the registration of a baby’s birth, also through the services of Growth Tech and its Notary Ledgers platform.
By Willmen Blanco
