A controversial, blockchain-based digital health passport could enable employees currently in lockdown to go back to work.
Oracle has partnered with Vottun, a company that specializes in the certification and traceability of data on the blockchain, to release a digital health passport that could enable employees currently in lockdown to go back to work.
The digital credentials system — known as an ‘Immunity Passport’ — created by Vottun records your immunity status on the blockchain which can easily be checked.
Rohan Hall, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Vottun, told Cointelegraph the passport “can be verified at any time using cryptography by any mobile phone that can read a QR code”. Credentials “are securely stored” and “immutable” and the system is as simple as using a mobile boarding pass for a flight.
The technology is currently being rolled out in Spain in conjunction with PwC. In the United States, Vottun reports it has already ”had early conversations” with the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
However the concept itself is controversial, with some likening immunity certificates to German soldiers demanding papers, while residents in China have wondered how else the data might be used.
Bringing us back to normal
Part of the reason for extreme measures like lockdowns is that it’s difficult to determine who has been in contact with infected people to advise them to quarantine themselves. Vottun’s system also makes contact tracing easier by tracking who has been exposed to COVID-19.
Hall said that the combination of the two offers a way for the government to reopen the economy:
“Until individuals’ status can be easily verified it will be difficult to open up our economy for business again. Since we do not know when there will be a cure we will need practical and trusted solutions like our Immunity Passports to navigate society with some sense of trust and confidence. Vottun’s Passports and our contact tracing will open the doors again to as normal a life as possible in such difficult times.”
