The government of South Korea’s planned city Sejong — which is the country’s trial ground for significant smart city solutions — declared on Friday that it would be building a blockchain-based platform for storing and verifying the digital identities of self-driving vehicles.

An Asian news outlet, Aju Business Daily, reported that South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT, along with the country’s internet technology watchdog, Korea Internet & Security Agency, will be driving the growth of the identity management and verification platform.

Sejong city officials said in a statement that blockchain-based technology platform would “greatly increase the credibility of data by strengthening the security of information shared by cars and their control tower.”

Preparing against illegal cloning of self-driving cars

Although autonomous vehicles are still distant from the mainstream, Sejong has already started to prepare to combat crimes linked to these advancements.

LG CNS, the technology wing of LG Group, and a Korean autonomous shuttle maker, will be operating in association with the Sejong city government to produce a blockchain-based encrypted identifier called decentralized identifier or DID. This could assist in preventing the illegal cloning of identities or hacking of self-driving vehicles.

The report reveals that the identity verification system will use various layers of encryption to the data shared among cars and on-road facilities utilizing “vehicle-to-everything,” or V2X, communication.

South Korea is spearheading blockchain innovation.

The South Korean government has shown extensive interest in blockchain technology and its implementation over major industries. In April, the government stated that blockchain was a “golden opportunity” and summoned for private sector companies to use its potential for technological innovation.

Although the government had earlier been doubtful concerning cryptocurrencies, it has shown constant efforts to legitimize cryptos and come up with favorable regulations. It was also reported that the Bank of Korea had launched a pilot program to evaluate the logistics of issuing a CBDC, or central bank digital currency.