Twelve members of UBITECH team, including Software Engineers, Web Developers, UI/UX Experts, Data Scientists, Mobile Developers and Blockchain Engineers, have submitted the CovIDpass idea and proof-of-concept at the online hackathon of Global Hack, entitled “Fight for our Future” (https://theglobalhack.devpost.com/), that takes place on April 9-12, 2020 and attracted more than 6,000 individuals submitting more than 1,000 ideas. CovIDpass proposes a privacy-preserving and secure infrastructure for the issuance and validation of the COVID-19 Immunity Certificate of citizens, enabling their mobility across different countries.
As COVID-19 is rapidly spreading across the globe, more restrictions on cross-country travelling are being imposed, significantly disrupting the air transportations. Worldwide public health safety restrictions have grounded more than 80% of flights, leading the industry and populations’ movement in unprecedented turbulence. It is inevitable that these strict policies are going to gradually transform into a system that incoming passengers will be obliged to prove their health status. Therefore, a global standardized COVID-19 immunity certification will be asked before boarding, as the humanity needs to ensure that in the post-COVID crisis era, people may move between countries in an objectively riskless fashion, both for themselves as well as for the public safety.
More specifically, CovIDpass aims at providing the solution to the challenge of safe air traveling by offering the infrastructure to certify, verify and validate the COVID-19 Immunity of the passengers, allowing them to enter the plane and travel, by an objective and indisputable fashion. The major medical enablers of the whole process are a) the serological testing and b) the vaccination. The serological testing constitutes a type of blood test that looks for the presence of antibodies produced by the immune system against SARS-CoV-2. The presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 ensures the immunity of the subject. The immunity will also be ensured through the vaccination that will be performed once the specific vaccine will be produced.
The medical organization (public or private) that will execute the process towards virus immunity will be able to input the specific information in CovIDpass platform. CovIDpass will store the information in blockchain infrastructure, as well as produce on-the-fly an encrypted QR code that will be sent to the subject. The encrypted QR code will contain the unique identifier of the subject, as well as the certified immunity result.
The electronic immunity certificate will be stored in the mobile of the end-user as an electronic card. Once the subject needs to travel, they will have to present the specific certificate to the ground handler controllers alongside with the boarding pass and the passport. The ground handling controller will be equipped with the CovIDpass QR scanner that will be able to scan the encrypted QR code, decrypt the information and verify the validity of the information, as well as the validity of the certificate itself through the blockchain infrastructure.
For more info please visit our CovIDpass submission at the Global Hack (https://devpost.com/software/covid-pass) or go through the supporting video on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frg9Xib2b44)
