For the travel industry, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Vaccines against COVID-19 are (slowly) being rolled out. And while it will take a while to return to any semblance of normal, cruise ships and airlines will at some point once again bustle with travelers journeying for business and pleasure.
But no matter where crowds gather, it’s likely that some things will change. Health credentials, rendered digitally, will be shared between consumers and companies (and even employers) to show proof of vaccination. These credentials will become ever-present as people wend their way through airport and public transportation settings, ports and check-in kiosks.
Various initiatives are underway to help fashion and deploy health passports, via firms like IBM (and its health pass), global efforts such as The Commons Project (and its CommonPass) and the International Air Transport Association’s IATA travel pass.
In an interview with PYMNTS, Reinhard Hochrieser, vice president of product management at Jumio, said the widespread adoption of vaccine passports is an inexorable trend. At a high level, he said, as the travel industry recovers, various stakeholders will need to consider the use of a health document or digital confirmation that individuals have received a vaccine.
But, of course, how we get there could involve a number of pathways.
As is always the case whenever information — and, particularly, sensitive data — might be shared, people are worried about fraud, how safe that data might be, and whether it is ethical to share health-related events at all.
Hochrieser noted that, upon bringing health-related information into digital identities, collecting and disseminating that data should ideally be done through partnerships between private companies, official organizations (such as the World Health Organization) and governments. He pointed to CommonPass, the healthcare-focused app developed by The Commons Project, The World Economic Forum and a broad coalition of public and private companies that lets users share lab results and vaccine information (with the individual’s consent and control).
One hurdle that exists today: a lack of uniformity or standardization in what data various governments collect, or how that data is presented. Many European countries, said Hochrieser, are building their own digital systems and digital ID initiatives, where communication across borders may be less than seamless. He said private companies would be able to reduce the friction inherent in data sharing by aggregating information across different states and countries and bringing it into one central location.
Data Aggregators and QR Codes
These private firms, he said, can “serve as aggregators and make sure that information is retrieved properly and infused into a digital identity.” QR codes can be part of the technological underpinnings of that data sharing, especially for people from developing nations where feature phones, and not advanced smartphones, may be the norm. In this way, he said, “we can think about the ‘classic ways’ of using paper, but enriching it with some data points [contained in the QR code].” Blockchain, he said, offers an immutable way to log and store information — and protect privacy.
“It’s absolutely crucial and important that the consumers know at every point in time: Where is the data stored? Did anyone change that data and what happened to it?” said Hochrieser.
“We need to find a way to store this kind of information so that it is not possible to get additional information about the health status of a particular person,” said Hochrieser.
One option is that a digital immunity passport, at least as far as COVID-19 vaccines might be concerned, could simply display a “yes or no” indication as to whether that person has received a vaccine.