DHS Names “Blockchain Managers” Among “Critical Infrastructure” Workers

In its memorandum, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has listed “blockchain managers” among the country’s “essential critical infrastructure” workers.

On March 19, the DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a memo stressing on the “special responsibility” of workers within a “critical infrastructure industry” to keep regular working schedules amid the intensifying coronavirus quarantine.

Blockchain named together with healthcare and pharma as “critical infrastructure industries”

The document states that blockchain managers are classified as workers in “critical infrastructure industries” as well as workers in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and food supply.

The inclusion of blockchain managers on CISA’s list of “critical infrastructure” workers may be a sign of the DHS’s recognition of the potential for distributed ledger technologies (DLT) to be deployed for coronavirus relief efforts.

How blockchain technology helps combat the coronavirus threat

According to the report shared by CryptoTheNews on February 21, China implemented blockchain technology in more than 20 applications, assisting the government’s efforts to prevent COVID-19 from spreading. Among these applications are those which manage and track health records, medical supplies, and medical data.

Private and public projects built on blockchain have also showed their effectiveness, such as Alipay’s DLT platform, which allows charitable donations to be monitored by the public.

In Hong Kong, insurers have considered DLT as a means to streamline the paperwork processes around medical claims, with Ant Financial introducing a “collective-claims” platform to accelerate processing speed.