Trusted Third Party Research Articles

Informational uncertainty as a determinant of attitudes towards environmental law and behavior

This article explores how information uncertainty affects people's attitudes to legal behavior in the context of environmental law. The article delves into the complexity of decision-making processes when you come across ambiguous or incomplete information regarding environmental regulations. By examining how uncertainty around laws and their enforcement affects relationships and compliance with legal norms, the study sheds light on the subtle interaction between information gaps and behavioral responses. The author studies how risk perception, trust in regulatory authorities and clarity of legal regulations contribute to the formation of people's attitudes towards compliance with environmental legislation. Understanding these dynamics can inform policy makers and regulators about strategies to increase clarity, transparency and communication in environmental law enforcement. By explaining the role of information uncertainty in shaping attitudes towards legal behavior, this article helps to develop more effective strategies to promote compliance with environmental requirements and environmental sustainability.

Измерение и оценка человеческого капитала для рынка труда региона

Despite the rapidly growing bibliography and a relative scientific consensus, the measurement of human capital at different levels, degrees of detail, socio-economic traditions remains a topical issue due to the use of various conceptualisation, measurement and interpretation techniques. However, the results of obtaining and measuring human capital so far have fallen short of expectations for a number of reasons, some of which are addressed in this article. Considering the specificity and diversity of Russian regions, assessment of their human capital gained importance in Russian scientific discourse in both quantitative and qualitative research. The present study aims to examine the influence of significant factors, including those determining regional specificity, on the self-assessment of human capital for the labour market in different segments of the economically active population. To obtain data, a new (for Russian scientific discourse) method of asking a group of questions and measuring total human capital for the labour market was applied. The study used the authors’ database and identified groups of factors and their effect on the self-assessment of human capital in accordance with well-known theoretical propositions. As a result, the article explained the influence of both external (satisfaction with living in a region and trust in local authorities) and traditional factors on the quality of human capital for some categories of the working population on the example of a specific Russian region.

Mutual Authentication Protocols Based on PUF and Multi Trusted Authority for Internet of Vehicle

Mutual Authentication Protocols Based on PUF and Multi Trusted Authority for Internet of Vehicle

TRUST IN ZAKAT AUTHORITIES AND ZAKAT COMPLIANCE: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS

Trust in zakat authorities is becoming a significant factor influencing zakat payers to perform their zakat obligations with formal governing institutions. A lack of trust in zakat authorities may lead to an increase in self-zakat distribution practices and a decrease in zakat collection. Even though zakat is a system that redistributes wealth from the rich to the poor, understanding the elements of trust in zakat authorities is crucial for promoting Islamic economic, social, and governance sustainability. Inspired by the governance compliance framework that underpins the study, this paper adopted the four concepts of trust: accountability, performance, fairness, and transparency. The aim of this paper is to explicate the accountability, performance, fairness, and transparency concepts that represent trust in zakat authorities. Additionally, this paper also defines the zakat compliance term critically. This conceptual analysis entails distinguishing terms, analysing the understandings to which they refer, and representing them in a zakat compliance context. The analysis has shown that accountability is reflected in the credibility and competency of zakat authorities in managing zakat affairs; performance refers to the efficiency of service quality and promotion of zakat awareness; fairness focuses on collection and distribution procedures; and transparency demonstrates to what extent disclosure practices are rendered by zakat authorities. The present study adds to the growing body of zakat compliance research. Future studies should attempt to examine the relationship between trust in zakat authorities and zakat compliance by conducting applied research.

Стан та проблеми в реалізації комунікаційних стратегій органів публічного управлінні

The article examines the state and identifies systemic problems in the implementation of communication strategies by public authorities in Ukraine, which do not allow to increase the efficiency of their work. The positive sides and shortcomings in the development and implementation of communication strategies in the field of public management and administration are analyzed; the requirements and factors that most significantly influence the content of communication processes in the public sphere are determined. It has been proven that the positive perception of the activities of public authorities is influenced not only by the information field formed by the Ukrainian mass media and interested parties, but also by informational messages of Russian propaganda, countering which should be the task of the structural units of public authorities responsible for communication. Suggestions for improving communication activities in the public sphere are provided. It is substantiated that when developing a communication strategy, public authorities should ensure the reduction of uncertainty and the risk of failure when making strategic management decisions. The essence of the interaction of public authorities with target audiences is determined, which consists in ensuring effective state policy, adapting state reforms to possible future changes in the external environment. It is emphasized that the achievement of these tasks is impossible without increasing the level of trust and image of public authorities among citizens; raising citizens’ awareness of the processes taking place in them; ensuring active participation of the public in the process of making management decisions and establishing feedback; improving cooperation with national and international mass media; strengthening the presence of public authorities at the international level; optimization of internal communications and information exchange in public authorities. Keywords: information, communications in public administration, strategic communications, communication risks, target audiences, communication channels.

Data-Mining Modeling of Corruption Perception Patterns Based on Association Rules

Corruption is one of the many challenges facing Ukrainian society. After the full-scale war, 89% of Ukrainian citizens consider corruption to be the most serious problem for the stable development of Ukraine. In the article, it is argued that neglecting the problem of corruption in society leads to a decrease in the level of trust in public authorities, economic losses, a decrease in the country’s investment attractiveness, a loss of trust from international partners, as well as other economic and political turbulences. The study aims to develop an economic and mathematical model for determining the patterns of corruption perception in Ukraine based on association rules implemented using data mining methods. The Python Numerical Python library was used to build association rules. The study of the patterns of corruption perception was analysed in terms of the legislative (based on the activities of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine), judicial (based on the activities of the courts) and executive (on the example of the activities of the President and his Office) branches of government. The source of primary data was the data of a survey conducted by the “Join!” Public Participation Support Program together with the USAID project “Support for Leader Organizations in Combating Corruption in Ukraine”. 38 association rules were determined for the judicial system, among which the most informative consequences were “distrust in the judicial system” and “corruption is widespread in the courts”. For the executive branch of government, 27 association rules were built, where the informative consequence was “citizens can influence, namely participate in public councils or public hearings to monitor state institutions and their decisions”. For the legislative branch, 33 association rules were formed, where the informative consequence was “citizens can influence, namely participate in public councils or public hearings to monitor state institutions and their decisions”. According to the empirical calculations, a regularity was found that Ukrainian society is democratic and believes in its power to overcome corruption in any branch of government, but members of society do not show active desire and only revolutionary manifestations are possible in a critical situation. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine can use the results obtained during the improvement of Ukrainian legislation, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine when approving the State Program for the Implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy and other state bodies in developing anti-corruption programs at various levels.

Pribadi: A decentralized privacy-preserving authentication in wireless multimedia sensor networks for smart cities

Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network (WMSN) is a network of interconnected sensor nodes equipped with multimedia devices capable to retrieve multimedia as well as scalar sensor data in smart city scenarios. With the progress of smart city development, WMSNs are becoming points of interest. The existing research works on the security of WMSNs show some significant centralized solutions; they are prone to denial of service attacks, central failure, and privacy breaches. Also, these solution are having limitations because of their centralized nature.Therefore, the the proposed scheme adopted the concept of decentralization to achieve more effective and ubiquitous results. As per our best knowledge, we introduce the first decentralized privacy-preserving authentication framework for WMSNs to address the energy and storage challenges. We call our solution PRIvacy-preserving Blockchain-based Authentication for multimeDIa networks (PRIBADI). PRIBADI uses a blockchain framework for authenticated communication between sensor nodes and base stations (as a trusted authority) by using certification and access authentication schemes. We elect trustworthy cluster heads based on weight metrics and these cluster heads forward the information to the Trusted Authority (TA). Subsequently, TA forward large data to the cloud for storage, and the information relevant to certificates and hashes are recorded on the distributed blockchain. Moreover, TA revokes the certificates of malicious sensor nodes and eliminates them from the blockchain. We run a set of experiments on PRIBADI and compare the results with the state-of-the-art models. We use the evaluation criteria of detection accuracy, operation, and energy consumption. We find that PRIBADI is 31.7% better than the existing models.

Trusted Third Party Application in Durable Medium e-Service

The paper presents a novel concept of applying a trusted third party (TTP) to the blockchain-based electronic service (e-service) in the form of a durable medium. The main aim of the proposed e-service is storing, managing, and processing sensitive electronic documents. The developed e-service meets the requirements of both Polish law (related to the durable medium) and market needs. Firstly, the functional requirements were defined. Subsequently, the adequate e-service was designed, and then implemented in a real company in Poland. Due to the nature of the durable medium e-service, the presented research combines scientific and implementation aspects. The designed and implemented e-service is secure (because of using the immutable blockchain technology merged with symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic algorithms) and trusted (by using TTP as the e-service provider, as well as an independent arbitrator monitoring the document storage and processing flow). Finally, the presented approach was experimentally verified using Hyperledger Besu—a blockchain implementation platform. During the realization of two designed test scenarios, over 30,000 transactions were added to the blockchain. Furthermore, security analyses were performed regarding inherent blockchain properties, the use of cryptographic algorithms, and potential cyberattacks and vulnerabilities.

Features of building trust in municipal authorities among young Russians

The subject of this article is related to factors associated with the functioning of self-government as a social process. The main focus is on the level of trust in local authorities by citizens of different age groups. Research shows that trust in local self-government is closely linked to citizens’ civic activity. However, the analysis reveals an interesting situation: young Russians under the age of 25, despite their generally low interest in the socio-political aspects of society, demonstrate a higher level of trust in municipal authorities compared to representatives of other age groups. To study the specifics of the situation in more depth, the author of the article used an approach based on the generational characteristics of Russian society. The aim of the study is to identify the factors that motivate Russians under the age of 25 to trust municipal authorities more than representatives of other age groups. The authors of the article hypothesise that people of different ages may have different preferences for sources of information that shape their attitude towards local self-government, and this affects the level of trust. To test this hypothesis, data from representative population surveys conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the FCTAS RAS in 2016, 2018, and 2021 were used. The analysis of the surveys showed that contemporary Russian youth have a weak understanding of municipal authorities and how they operate in practice. Young people are not interested in traditional mass media through which the main information about municipal authorities is conveyed;instead, they rely on the opinions of people in their social circles. Young people have limited opportunities to obtain information about the activities of municipal authorities directly, as due to their age they have little experience of direct interaction with them. Therefore, an important source of information about municipal authorities for young people becomes observing how the activities of municipal authorities impact their local community. Significant part of young people are satisfied with the results of the activities of local authorities that they can observe. This satisfaction likely contributes to a higher level of trust in municipal authorities among this age group.

The key role of risk perception in preparedness for oil pipeline accidents in urban areas: A sequential mediation analysis

Effective disaster risk reduction requires conducting research within communities that gave recognized natural or technological risks, to foster the development of more resilient societies. However, limited information is available regarding risk perception and preparedness for technological hazards in disaster-prone urban areas of South America. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors that influence public risk perception regarding the Trans-Ecuadorian Oil Pipeline System and its relationship with household preparedness for a potential accident in the Metropolitan District of Quito (Ecuador). We assess the link among knowledge, trust in authorities, risk perception, intention to prepare, and preparedness. Results from a sequential mediation analysis reveal that risk perception partially and positively mediates the relationship between knowledge and preparedness and acts as a negative full mediator between the latter and trust. These findings provide valuable information for future risk governance and communication strategies, aimed at enhancing risk perception and improving individual preparedness of individuals, as well as risk mitigation procedures.

Integrating health belief model and theory of planned behavior to assess COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among urban slum people in Bangladesh.

The vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been identified as a promising strategy to reduce the severity of the pandemic. Despite the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, bringing socioeconomically disadvantaged people under vaccination coverage has been challenging for developing countries like Bangladesh. Therefore, this study explored the determinants of vaccine acceptance among urban slum residents of Bangladesh using the Health Belief Model (HBM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). A face-to-face survey of 400 urban slum dwellers in two large cities in Bangladesh was conducted between July 5 to August 5, 2021. The questionnaire included vaccine acceptance, socio-demographics, health-related characteristics, trust in health authorities, reasons for vaccine hesitancy, and dimensions of HBM and TPB frameworks. Hierarchical logistic regression was performed to evaluate the association between these characteristics and vaccination acceptance. Around 82% (n = 327) of respondents were willing to accept the COVID-19 vaccine. In a fully adjusted model, respondents with secondary level education had higher intention (OR = 46.93, 95%CI = 1.21-1807.90, p < 0. 05) to accept COVID-19 vaccine. Respondents with bad (OR = 0.11, 95%CI = 0.01-0.35, p<0.05) or very bad (OR = 0.01, 95%CI = 0.01-0.35, p<0.05) health conditions were less interested in the COVID-19 vaccination. In regard to HBM dimensions, greater perceived susceptibility (OR = 1.75, 95% CI = 1.12-2.75, p < 0.05), and perceived benefits (OR = 3.28, 95% CI = 1.17-6.00, p < 0.001) were associated with a greater willingness to get vaccinated. In regard to TPB, higher self-efficacy in preventing illness without the vaccine increased the desire to get vaccinated (OR = 1.55, 95% CI = 1.02-2.37, p < 0.05). Fear of unknown side effects, religious beliefs, contraindications to vaccination, and insufficient information on the vaccine were the main reasons for vaccine hesitancy. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers in Bangladesh to design targeted interventions that address vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccination acceptability among socially disadvantaged individuals in urban areas. Strategies should focus on providing accurate and accessible information about the vaccine, communicating its positive impact effectively, engaging with religious leaders to address misconceptions, and tailoring vaccination campaigns to meet the unique needs of different demographic groups.

Особливості функціонування органів місцевого самоврядування в період воєнного стану в Україні

Abstract. The article comprehensively theorizes and analyzes the unique aspects of legal regulations governing the operations of local self-government bodies during Ukraine's period of martial law. It presents specific proposals aimed at enhancing the legislation that oversees this sphere of power and legal relations. The article emphasizes the critical role of local self-government bodies during times of conflict, highlighting their continued significance as a crucial mechanism in upholding the efficient functioning of public authority and the state's defense capabilities. This was vividly demonstrated through the actions of local self-government bodies in response to the Russian Federation's large-scale invasion of Ukraine. They were tasked with establishing voluntary territorial community formations as per the Law of Ukraine "On the Foundations of National Resistance." This involved creating checkpoints, protective structures, and facilitating conditions for the effective functioning of volunteer units. In regions without direct hostilities, these bodies actively engaged in volunteer work and providing support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Numerous instances exist where these bodies either spearheaded or significantly contributed to volunteer initiatives at the community level. According to the author, the experience gained by Ukraine during the war demonstrates the undeniable advantage of self-organization of the population over centralized management. The central government will not be able to take over the functions of local self-government bodies and perform them as effectively. Even before the war, the level of trust in local authorities among citizens was one of the highest compared to other institutions. With increasing interaction between people and their local government, this trust has only strengthened. Hence, the proposal to dissolve or arbitrarily limit the powers of local self-government bodies during wartime is considered unconstitutional and a threat to the country's national security. Termination or limitation of their powers is possible only in extraordinary cases, when there is a direct threat to the life and safety of citizens who are in the territory of hostilities or occupation. In all other cases, such actions should only be possible following a well-justified court decision. It's crucial to recognize that local self-government holds the same constitutional significance as the state's structure. The Constitution of Ukraine explicitly outlines the status of local self-government bodies, in particular their functions and powers, which they perform in peaceful conditions. Therefore, making amendments to the Constitution regarding the functioning of local self-government seems unfeasible. The functioning of local self-government during the war requires additional legislative regulation. Consequently, the Law of Ukraine "On Adopting Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Functioning of the Civil Service and Local Self-Government during the Period of Martial Law" was enacted, incorporating significant amendments into the Laws "On Local Self-Government in Ukraine" and "On the Legal Regime of Martial Law". The latest legislative act is of particular importance for the constitutional legal order, essentially acting as an addition to the Constitution of Ukraine, the effect of which is actualized in the period of wars.

The Use of Modern Technologies to Increase the Level of Trust in Society

One of the pressing issues of the modern world is the problem of trust in government. The election process is a pivotal event in society’s life, influencing a country’s future. Decreased trust in authority, including elections, leads to vulnerability in the voting and result tallying process. Simultaneously, the rapid advancement of information technology, automation, and computerization affecting almost all spheres of life, among other things, has a widespread impact on the functioning of government institutions. One of the key tasks addressed by new technologies is increasing trust levels in society. Blockchain technology, or distributed ledgers, has revolutionized the world of information technology and found applications in various domains, including the organization of elections at different levels. The use of blockchain technology in the electoral process can help address the trust issue by ensuring transparency, reliability, and confidentiality in voting, while minimizing the possibility of result tampering. In a blockchain-based system, voting can occur anonymously without intermediaries and intermediate technologies. This article examines the problem of trust in government institutions, highlights issues in the electoral process, presents a description of the blockchain technology-based solution, and provides examples of existing systems used during the electoral process. It concludes that the implementation of blockchain technology in the electoral process will ensure a more transparent and secure voting process, significantly increasing trust in authority.

How citizens engage with the social media presence of climate authorities: the case of five Brazilian cities

Citizen-government communication is essential in preparedness and adaptation to climate events. Local-level government authorities have sought to communicate via social media, but little is known about their communication strategies and citizens’ participation in replying to their publications. This study draws on conceptual frameworks for Social Media Presence and Human Engagement to establish behavioural modelling and topic modelling approaches for assessing citizen-authority communication from a long-term perspective. Empirical analyses focus on official government authorities for the Brazilian cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre and Belém, which cover over 25 million people and 500 thousand followers on the X platform (former Twitter). Analyses are based on 10.2 thousand authorities’ publications and their 5.5 thousand received replies from 2.6 thousand people over one year. Findings show that authorities use periodic passive posting, providing meteorological, hydrological, and geological alerts, forecasts, and momentary weather updates. Citizen engagement is short-term, providing corrections, additions, and updates but not connecting weather events with climate change. Practice-oriented implications concern the adequacy of social media for providing citizens awareness, keeping them updated, and building their trust in authorities over climate event developments.

Influence mechanism of coping behaviours for natural hazards: Empirical study in Henan, China

Natural hazards caused by climate change have increased in frequency in recent years, causing global threats to life and economic losses. Appropriate coping behaviours can help reduce disaster risks and protect lives and property. However, the mechanisms underlying the influence of different coping behaviours remain poorly understood. This study collected questionnaire data from Henan Province, China, and used a structural equation model to explore the influencing factors, influence degree, and influence path of positive, negative, and risky coping behaviours. The results showed that (1) the level of risk perception increased with increasing familiarity with disasters and information about consequence severity and with decreasing trust in authorities. Perceived controllability improved with increased familiarity with disasters, trust in authorities, and reduced information about consequence severity; (2) risk perception and perceived controllability moderated the impact of familiarity with disasters, information about consequence severity, and trust in authorities for three different coping behaviours; (3) information about consequence severity was the greatest driving force affecting positive coping behaviours and negative coping behaviours and the degree of trust in the authorities was the greatest driving force affecting risky coping behaviours. These findings provide a reference for the government to guide the public to adopt positive coping behaviours and reduce the risks of natural hazards.

Bilinear pairing-based access control and key agreement scheme for smart transportation

Internet of Vehicles (IoV) enabled Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) allows smart vehicles to communicate with other vehicles on road, humans (customers or pedestrians), infrastructure (parking areas, traffic lights etc), Internet, Cloud etc. The vehicles communicate with other entities over wireless open channels directly or indirectly through messages or beacons. Open channel allows various attacks, like replay, man-in-the-middle, impersonation, fabrication etc., during communication. Also, malicious vehicles can be deployed in the network to misuse or have an unauthorized access to the services. To mitigate these issues, we propose a new remote access control scheme that ensures the secure communication among the vehicles. The vehicles are dynamic in nature in an IoV paradigm, that is, they are not under fixed domains. Therefore, whenever a vehicle changes its location it has to register to the nearest trusted authority (TA) in offline or secured channel mode. To make it applicable, we propose remote registration of the vehicles via the TA. Access control mechanism occurs in two phases: 1) node authentication phase, where vehicles are remotely authenticated by TA and 2) key agreement phase, where after successful mutual authentication they compute a session key by using cryptographic techniques and pre-loaded information. The computed secret session keys are used for ensuring secure communications in future between two vehicles in a cluster as well. Informal security analysis along with formal security verification using the broadly-used Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) show that our access control scheme is secured against various potential attacks. We also show the competency of our scheme by comparing it with other existing schemes in terms of computation and communication costs.

Foreign practices in municipal governance: experience and features of implementation

The relevance of this article is determined by the growing need to increase trust in state authorities and local self-government on the part of the population of the territories, including the quality of management decisions made that would contribute to the implementation of projects of the best municipal practices for the development of territories. The purpose of this work is to study foreign experience in implementing the best municipal practices, systematize them, and also assess the possibility of their adaptation in Russian reality. In this study, using the example of US municipalities, an assessment was made of the areas for implementing best municipal practices in this country. The article shows the range and variety of areas of implemented best practices in the field of municipal management, highlighting their main groups. The possibilities of adapting foreign experience in the conditions of Russian reality are determined. The article used general scientific research methods. In order to visually present the research results, a data visualization method and a keyword cloud were used. The theoretical basis of the study is based on scientific works of both foreign and domestic scientists dedicated to the area under study. The empirical basis for the study is open sources of municipal statistics, as well as the official information portal — the website of the state of New Jersey, USA. It is concluded that the best municipal practices of the USA and Russia have similarities in determining priorities in their implementation — these are social protection and the interests of citizens. It is proposed to use differences in management systems and the implementation of municipal practices as potentially possible directions for the development of municipal management experience. Along with this, an important role is played by the high-quality exchange of experience and the involvement of proactive citizens and social groups in resolving issues of local importance that directly affect their interests.

PF-IBDA: Provably secure and pairing-free identity-based deniable authentication protocol for MANET environments

Mobile Adhoc Network (MANET) is used in various real-time applications, such as e-voting, army tactical communication, health-care applications, disaster rescue, online message exchange, etc. However, source authentication and deniability are essential properties in such applications. Typically, these properties can be achieved using a deniable authentication (DA) protocol. With the help of a DA protocol, a mobile receiver node can directly verify the source, another mobile node, of a message without consulting a trusted third party (TTP). Recently, many identity-based deniable authentication (IBDA) protocols have been proposed. Most of these protocols are insecure and computationally expensive since they use costly operations, such as bilinear pairing and map-to-point hash function. We proposed a pairing-free identity-based deniable authentication (PF-IBDA) protocol for MANET environments. We proved that the PF-IBDA protocol could provide indistinguishability against adaptive chosen ciphertext attack (IND-CCA2) in the random oracle model (ROM) based on the hardness assumption of the elliptic curve computational Diffie–Hellman (ECCDH) problem. We have computed the execution time of PF-IBDA protocol in different security levels: 80-bit, 112-bit, 128-bit, 192-bit, and 256-bit on a mobile device using the JPBC library and compared it with the state-of-the-art IBDA protocols. We found that the proposed PF-IBDA protocol is more efficient than the existing IBDA protocols.

Developing a national pandemic vaccination calendar under supply uncertainty

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries faced challenges in developing and maintaining a reliable national pandemic vaccination calendar due to vaccine supply uncertainty. Deviating from the initial calendar due to vaccine delivery delays eroded public trust in health authorities and the government, hindering vaccination efforts. Motivated by these challenges, we address the problem of developing a long-term national pandemic vaccination calendar under supply uncertainty. We propose a novel two-stage mixed integer programming model that considers critical factors such as multiple doses, varying dosing schemes, and uncertainties in vaccine delivery timing and quantity. We present an efficient aggregation-based algorithm to solve this complex problem. Additionally, we extend our model to allow for dynamic adjustments to the vaccine schedule in response to mandatory policy changes, such as modifications to dose intervals, during ongoing vaccinations. We validate our model based on a case study developed by using real COVID-19 vaccination data from Norway. Our results demonstrate the advantages of the proposed stochastic optimization approach and heuristic algorithm. We also present valuable managerial insights through extensive numerical analysis, which can aid public health authorities in preparing for future pandemics.

Blockchain based secure Ownership Transfer Protocol for smart objects in the Internet of Things

Secure digital ownership transfer is critical for smart objects within the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. This paper presents the Ownership Transfer Protocol (OTP), which leverages Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) and blockchain technology to ensure the secure transfer of ownership for smart objects in the IoT. The proposed protocol can securely track and trace smart objects during their movement in the IoT supply chain. Unlike the traditional Ownership Transfer (OT) architecture, the proposed architecture does not require a Trusted Third Party (TTP) and can support Partial Ownership Transfer (POT). The innovative use of immutable blockchain architecture enabled the proposed protocol to effectively support distributed environments and authenticate both the device and involved parties. The proposed protocol is evaluated for its robustness against common attacks outlined in this paper and implemented using the Ethereum blockchain. The testbed results on Ethereum confirm the optimal gas consumption of the proposed model. Furthermore, utilizing the security claim verification tool, Scyther, the experiment validates the security claim regarding the communication between the parties involved in the proposed protocol’s OT process.