Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is part of a new collaboration to develop a system for monitoring worker health and safety using blockchain technology.
Blockchain is a technology that allows people to quickly and securely share data on the Internet. Under the new system, an annual survey enabled with blockchain technology will allow workers to anonymously self-report working conditions in factories. The system will augment the work of outside auditors of factory health and safety.
The effort is a collaboration of Harvard Chan School, New America (a think tank), and Levi Strauss & Co. The system will be used in several factories in Mexico that make Levi Strauss goods.
The blockchain-based survey will use an index developed by Harvard Chan School.
Eileen McNeely, director of Harvard Chan School’s Sustainability for Health Initiative for NetPositive Enterprise (SHINE), said in a January 24, 2019 Reuters article, “A distributed system of inquiry on the blockchain that goes right to the source (workers) offers a new solution.”
Read the Reuters article: Harvard, Levi Strauss, U.S. think tank in blockchain tie-up on worker welfare