Audencia, eager to expand the services it offers to its graduates, wanted to provide them with a permanent, tamper-proof graduation certificate. With its interest in new technologies, it chose blockchain technology to secure the data and provide a framework of trust for the different actors using the system.
Graduation Certificate
A permanent, tamper-proof online graduation certificate
Audencia, keen to expand the services it offers to its graduates, wanted to provide them with a permanent, tamper-proof certificate of graduation. With a keen interest in new technologies, it chose blockchain technology to secure the data and provide a framework of trust for the various stakeholders using the system.
Certificates stored on the Ethereum blockchain
A permanent, forgery-proof online graduation certificate
Audencia's official address on the public Ethereum blockchain is: 0x6e1fb760839Cc50Ec92Dd1de47D835ab4455939D
The layout may vary according to the screen size on which the certificate is consulted, but the information will always be of the same nature.
- At the top right, you can change the language of the certificate (French or English).
- Further down, a link allows you to generate a printable version with a QR code; this QR code, when flashed, opens a browser and points directly to the attestation's blockchain URL.
- At the very bottom, the link to the various proofs of the attestation.
As the operation has a fixed cost per certificate entered in the blockchain, we have concentrated on the diplomas and years that are most in demand. It's rare that after 25 years in the business, you'll still be asked for a diploma certificate; it's more likely to be your CV that speaks for you. Nevertheless, there's nothing to prevent the system from being extended to other programs or to graduates of older graduating classes, either conceptually or structurally.
Like all digital activities, blockchain consumes energy. We chose Etheréum precisely because it consumes 4 times less energy than the Bitcoin blockchain, for example. What's more, without going into the technical details, it is planned that Etheréum will migrate to a "Proof of Stack" model, which is even more energy-efficient than the "Proof of Work" model. Finally, we need to compare the carbon footprint of a traditional model, where graduates request a certificate several times in their life, which must be checked, printed and sent by post, with a model where the certificate is generated only once in the blockchain and can be consulted for life.
The system is perfectly compliant. As this is personal information, the graduate retains control over it. In particular, they can request that their certificates be revoked so that they are no longer accessible.
Many companies and recruitment agencies have well-established processes in which a document has to be supplied in order to be inserted into an EDM (Electronic Document Management). Confirmation in an online directory just doesn't cut it for them. And if we added a PDF file generator to our directory, it would be easy for anyone, with very limited resources, to use it to generate false attestations. On the contrary, by storing the attestation data in the blockchain, it can be made forgery-proof, and the evidence can be exposed without difficulty. Here, blockchain plays the role of a digital notary, a digital mortgage registrar or an online cadastral service. A forger could always try to alter an Audencia diploma certificate, but consulting the evidence in the blockchain would instantly reveal the deception.