Technology Can Transform Property Rights. But It's Not.

Technology has transformed almost every aspect of our lives.

We shop online for everything from used shipping containers to live ladybugs. When we get sick, we ask Google for a cure or—preferably—a video chat with our doctor. On the Las Vegas strip, gamblers shuttle between casinos in self-driving Lyfts. In Rwanda, drones deliver blood to patients.

And yet, technology uptake has been frustratingly slow in the land and property rights sector, where 70 percent of land around the world remains undocumented. Technologies exist that allow us to map and register property for pennies on the dollar, in minutes: lightweight drones, high-accuracy phones, machine-learning applications, and blockchain, to name a few. But they remain largely untapped.

Worse yet, the very people who should know and care about these technologies—government officials, policy-makers, and funders—have only a foggy idea of their existence and utility.

Yesterday, New America’s Future of Property Rights program released a series of six PropRightsTech Primers. These 101-style tools quickly explain some of today’s most promising property rights technologies: drones, blockchain, machine-learning, 3D cadastre, self-sovereign identity, and the dual-band global navigation satellite system. The primers break down each of these technologies, explain their strengths and limitations, and provide use cases as examples.

This is a useful first step: Until now, the literature on property rights technology has been dense, academic, and, yes, technical. None of these qualities help a busy politician trying to quickly get up to speed on whether a 3D cadastre, for example, can help solve the problem of rapid urbanization in her city.

Still, merely explaining the technology isn’t nearly enough. This technology won’t be adopted until we reform the very institutions that are supposed to deliver property rights in the first place.

The fact is that the ministries in charge of mapping, documenting, and administering land are largely broken. The laws that govern property are stuck in the 18th century. And the same politicians who promise land reform are secretly hoarding land and distributing it as a political patronage tool.

Indeed, while technology is a critical piece of the property rights puzzle, it’s in some ways the easiest—we can buy a drone, train a computer, and upgrade our phones. But the technology won’t be adopted unless we reform the laws, people, and institutions that govern property.

How do we do that?

It’s useful to start by thinking about property rights innovation as a three-legged stool: the first leg is technology, the second leg is processes, and the third leg is people.

Technology is the gadgets, phones, and drones. It’s the hardware and software that enables us to map and record rights more quickly, cheaply, and easily.

Processes are the rules that govern how technology gets deployed (or doesn’t) in the land sector: the laws, policies, and regulations. Inertia tugs at processes to remain stagnant over time (“this is how it has always been done”), but innovation dictates that they constantly evolve.

People are the individuals and institutions behind the processes. They’re making decisions, from the decision to embark on a land reform program in the first place, to a decision to enact or repeal a regulation that can make it easier to deploy technology. They’re the champions, the naysayers, the innovators, and the vested interests.

If any of the legs is flimsy, the stool falls down.

Tech innovation is necessary but not sufficient to move the needle on property rights: Both people and processes must also innovate. And while reading a brief can help bolster the technology leg of the property rights stool, strengthening the people and processes legs will take a more sustained and systematic effort.

Part of this article was adapted from a Future of Property Rights blog post.