Revolutionizing Judicial Record Management: A Novel Integration of IPFS and Ethereum for Enhanced Security and Transparency

Abstract

Modern legal institutions encounter significant difficulties ensuring document security, public access, and verification processes in digital environments. This research presents an innovative framework combining distributed ledger technology with decentralized file systems to address critical vulnerabilities in traditional court record management. Our solution leverages Ethereum's smart contract capabilities alongside the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to establish an immutable, transparent, and distributed architecture for judicial documentation. The proposed framework demonstrates significant improvements in data integrity verification, unauthorized access prevention, and system resilience. Through comprehensive testing using authentic judicial datasets, we validated the system's capacity to detect tampering attempts while maintaining efficient document retrieval. Key contributions include: (1) a novel three-tier architecture integrating blockchain immutability with IPFS content addressing, (2) automated verification protocols through smart contracts, and (3) enhanced transparency mechanisms enabling public verification of document authenticity. Performance evaluations reveal substantial improvements in security metrics while maintaining acceptable operational efficiency. This research establishes a foundation for next-generation judicial information systems that prioritize transparency, security, and public trust.