International Travel During COVID-19 … Courtesy of Blockchain
Is international travel in your future? If yes, you may soon find yourself battling three to four-hour long check-in lines, temperature screening, disinfection tunnels and in-flight sanitation sprays.
That’s clearly a hassle given how stressful traveling can be to begin with, but those COVID-19 precautions can be largely solved with immunity passports.
Never heard of immunity passports? I’m not surprised. The idea is rather new, but it has the potential to radically change international travel ... even after the pandemic has passed.
Immunity passports are digital instead of traditional paper passports and are stored on a blockchain-encrypted smartphone app.
The Digital Innovation and Transformation Department, which is a division of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, has developed an internet-based passport system that will dramatically reduce the impact of COVID-19 on global tourism.
These new passports, which are a combination of passports and your personal medical history, have been dubbed “immunity passports.”
Immunity passports will work fairly simply. An authorized medical center will certify that you have tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies and are no threat to pass on the infection to others.
That immunity certification will be stored on a blockchain-secure database that is linked to your passport number.
The use of blockchain not only verifies your immunity, it keeps your personal medical records hidden from unauthorized prying eyes, makes it virtually impossible to forge and assures the country that you are traveling free of COVID-19.
Tech Savvy Passports
According to the UN World Tourism Organization, these blockchain-secured protocols will “avoid the possibility of false profiles being created or medical records being manipulated.” In short, immunity passports will be will impossible to falsify.
Don’t worry: Immunity passports will ONLY store your immunity status and vaccination history, and NONE of your other personal medical information. Moreover, your medical data will only be accessible to the immigration department of governments on the “requesting” side of app.
And immunity passports may become a reality sooner than you think. A July flight from Madrid to the Canary Islands will test the digital health passport app.
Many aspects of our life have already been digitized. The immunity passport is just another example. Immunity passports will store your entire history of travel, and through blockchain tech, eliminate the fear of being lost or stolen and give you increased control over your personal medical information.
The entire travel experience will be smoother and quicker than ever because it removes the time-consuming process of human verification. Immunity passports will allow you to breeze through immigration and security lines, rather than be stuck waiting for hours.
Best of all, immunity passports will help return our lives to more pre-coronavirus normalcy and open up the world for international travel.
Digital passports are long overdue, and I can’t wait for them to become a reality.
Best wishes,
Tony Sagami
