Cloud-Based Document Repository

Software	Any appropriate programming language, SQL, (probably) HTML + CSS
Covers	Database design, human factors, (optionally) security
Skills Required	Programming, interest in cloud computing, preferably interest in security
Challenge	Conceptual ??? Technical ??? Programming ???

Brief Description

People have and require access to various official documents, such as birth certificates, tax records, driving licences, title deeds for houses, certificates for academic qualifications, and the like. In some cases the documents are valuable and difficult to replace, so people need to take great care of their paper copies. And some of these documents are useful weapons for identity thieves and other criminals. It can also sometimes happen that people sign forms and get given pieces of paper not realising that they are important and need to be looked after because they'll be needed years later.

Having official and definitive versions of documents readily available in an online respository would be enormously helpful. Often, branches of the government and commercial organizations need access to people's official documentation, but the documents should be kept secure and confidential. These organizations might also want to provide documents in a systematic and unloseable way, to cut out the vagaries of individual treatment of pieces of paper.

The focus of this project is designing and developing a cloud-based system for storing and releasing people's official documentation, enabling people to upload or store electronic versions of their official paperwork, and allowing access and depositing rights only to the individuals and organizations with lawful and legitimate reasons to access the documents. This could be based on the needs of one country (pick a country...) or be designed to work across countries. The legal, contractual and technical infrastructure would need to include ways to allow access to heirs and executors, and to people with guardianship or lasting power of attourney or similar legal status for managing other people's affairs.

Variants

The database project: The project could focus on the technical requirements analysis, database design and interface aspects of the project, to produce a concept demonstrator prototype, while treating the heavy duty security that a working system would need as someone else's problem. Issues to explore include how to group documents effectively for particular purposes, and how to handle access management.

The security project: The project could focus on exploring and trying to solve the security problems involved in implementing a sufficiently secure system for managing official documents online.

The document technology project: What is involved in having documents that are both human and machine readable so that a lot of the processing that organizations need to do can be automated? What is involved in making documents difficult or impossible to forge or manipulate? What is involved in making documents or components of documents encrypted so that they can only be read or altered by appropriate people?

Cross-Reference

A very different project would look at the legal and ethical issues involved in managing official documents electronically, or at people's attitudes to having government or a private service provider look after their legal documents for them. See Official Documents in the Cloud.

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