Italian Postal Service Joins Hyperledger Blockchain Community

The Italian postal service provider, Poste Italiane, has joined the Hyperledger blockchain community, Cointelegraph Italia reported on Jan. 29.

Hyperledger is a collaborative project led by the Linux Foundation which aims to create open-source standards for blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). It includes several industry leaders, including American Express, Cisco, Intel , JPMorgan, Deloitte and Huawei.

Poste Italiane stated in a press release that joining Hyperledger is consistent with the service’s Deliver 2022 Business Plan. Part of the plan involves the acquisition and acceleration of new technology in the agency’s operations.

The announcement draws particular attention to data protection, stating that blockchain technology is “an effective response to the problems of security, transparency, interoperability and privacy.”

American courier delivery services giant FedEx joined hyperledger in September 2018. FedEx CEO Fred Smith has previously stated that blockchain technology has “big, big implications” for supply chains. Smith said, “We’re quite confident that it has big, big implications in supply chain, transportation and logistics.”

Last week, a committee in the Italian Senate approved an amendment on blockchain industry regulation, which provides definitions for DLT-based technologies and smart contracts. The amendment also states that a blockchain-powered digital data record will enable the legal validation of documents at the time of registration.

Following approval from the Senate’s “filter committees,” the proposed amendment must now be approved by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic. Once the decree is passed into law, the technical aspects of the legislation will be overseen by Agency for Digital Italy, which is under the purview of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.