Blockchain technology has been gaining traction all across the world, especially in China. As per a report from the local news outlet Global Times on April 25, blockchain technology is being increasingly employed to settle court cases in China.
Zhang Wen, the president of the Beijing Internet Court spoke at the 2019 Forum on China Intellectual Property Protection and stated that the court employs technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to render judgments. Established in September 2018, the Beijing Internet Court and has since processed 14,904 cases.
Zhang told the Global Times that “of the 41 cases concluded [with blockchain technology] so far, parties chose to settle out of court rather than litigate in 40 cases with compelling evidence from the blockchain. This fosters social credibility development in the country.” Further, it was noted that the court had deployed blockchain in 58 cases to collect and provide evidence. Zhang said:
“In the current use of AI as an assistant to make rulings, efficiency is prioritized over accuracy. A human judge is ultimately responsible for the fair ruling. […] But we are heading toward a future when we can see an AI judge sitting at the podium.”
Last December, an Internet Court in Hangzhou, Eastern China, turned to blockchain in order to fight piracy at the expense of online writers. Wang Jiangqiao, a judge at the Internet Court, said that since “blockchain guarantees that data cannot be tampered […] all digital footprints stored in the judicial blockchain system […] have legal effect.”
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