As countries begin the first round of COVID-19 vaccinations, governments, airlines and business establishments are determining how to best verify test results. Several tech companies have begun proposing the integration of health pass applications capable of storing an individual’s personal health information and medical records. This is intended to make COVID-19 vaccination data easily accessible while simultaneously speeding up the screening process. Some have taken to calling this kind of technology a “vaccine passport,” functioning similarly to how one would scan their travel passport when arriving at an airport. This can determine whether someone is authorized to enter business such as shopping malls and restaurants, or even whether they can be considered eligible for work.
Tangem recently extended their physical wallet technology to store health credentials. Participating in the COVID-19 Credentials Initiative (CCI), hosted by Linux Foundation Public Health, Tangem is looking to partner with companies to build on their NFC-enabled cards/physical wallets for storing COVID-19 credentials including vaccination records. This wallet utilizes Tangem’s database stack technology, which was initially designed for handling cryptocurrency transactions and managing digital assets.
“This makes it possible for those without a smartphone to hold their digital vaccination records and get verified digitally wherever they go,” says Lucy Yang, Community Director of the CCI. “It is important to build inclusive technology solutions especially for public health use cases and we welcome more companies like Tangem to join our efforts and help public health authorities tackle technical and social challenges in combating COVID-19.”
The CCI is a global community of technologists, academics and healthcare professionals who are on a mission to implement digital vaccination records based on the W3C’s Verifiable Credential standard. According to the community, the concept of a secure digital or physical wallet with COVID credentials such as vaccination records or tests could be an efficient solution to mitigating the spread of the COVID-19 virus—similar to the success of contact tracing apps.
In addition, IBM has collaborated with Salesforce to develop its own health pass version. The IBM Digital Health Pass is built on IBM Blockchain technology as well as the Salesforce Work.com platform, which is designed for office data management and communication. After a person receives the vaccine, the health credential will be uploaded onto the individual’s own encrypted digital wallet, which is accessible via smartphone. According to IBM, the app was designed to allow users to have control over their personal health information. Companies can also tailor customer verification data to look at test results, vaccination records, and temperature checks. Through Work.com, establishments can conduct additional wellness surveys for employees or visitors, as well as release manual contact tracing alerts and schedule COVID-19 tests when exposure to the virus is detected.
The Commons Project is also building two digital health platforms: CommonHealth and CommonPass. CommonHealth allows users to store and share their personal health information, while CommonPass verifies traveler health status. According to the organization, the concept for CommonPass was to allow countries to authenticate the vaccinations administered in other countries and update their health screening entry requirements accordingly. The Commons Project believes this will be beneficial to the travel industry, particularly given the rapidly evolving nature of the pandemic.
While these technologies are promising, critics remain skeptical that they will ever implemented on a mass scale because of the civil and legal implications of universal vaccine credentials. In addition to this, the scientific community has stressed that immunization still doesn’t guarantee a return to normal activity and that more information will need to be collected and studied regarding the vaccine’s performance over the next few months or longer. According to some critics, vaccination credentials can only provide a record of the date of vaccination but don’t necessarily mean that one is safe from contracting or carrying the COVID-19 virus. As of now, a negative COVID-19 test still remains the best source of proof.
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