Since 23rd March, international passenger services in India have been suspended due to the coronavirus
pandemic. However, special international flights began operating after May, on the basis of bilateral ‘air bubble’ arrangements that the country inked with 20 nations.
Under this pact, special international flights can be operated by airlines of two countries between their territories. It is mandatory for passengers taking these flights to have a COVID-19 negative report. Most airports in India opened a testing facility on their premises for outgoing and incoming passengers.
Despite these measures, Indian airlines were blamed for carrying COVID-19 positive passengers. The Dubai Civil Aviation Authority even asked Air India Express to reject COVID-19 reports from four labs in the country, after their negative reports proved to be false.
As international travel started picking up, there has been an alarming rise in the sale of fake COVID-19 test certificates, especially in Russia, the Middle East, Brazil, France and the UK. In November, French officials apprehended a group of people selling counterfeit test certificates at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport. According to media reports, the miscreants were demanding $180 to $360 to give them digital certificates of a negative result.
These practices underline that passengers are willing to travel with a manipulated document. It also exposes the massive health risk as passengers with these fake certificates can infect other travellers on
what should ideally be a COVID-safe bubble onboard an aircraft.
To tackle this challenge, British cyber technology company, VST Enterprises (VSTE), has launched a ‘Fit to Fly’ secure health passport. The VHealth Passport, which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play, has been designed for cross border travel by air, land and sea.
Once downloaded, travellers can use this digital health passport alongside any form of COVID19 testing
and vaccination that does not use unsecure bar codes and QR code technology. Airlines and transport carriers can also download and use the system.
SAFE AND SECURE
This tech solution comes at a time when the safety of bar codes and QR codes in airline travel has come under intense scrutiny. It was further highlighted following the cyberattack on former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbot, who claimed that his Qantas airline boarding pass was hacked. Information, including his passport details, mobile phone number and messages between Qantas staff about him, was intercepted by hackers.
The V-Health Passport, therefore, uses its proprietary VCode code scanning cyber security technology. Using a closed loop technology with end to end encryption, the solution has 2.q Quintillion collision free combination codes. These get decoded based on geo location, time, date, device type and user login.
With this secure digital passport, airlines can validate a traveller’s identity besides authenticating their COVID19 test results and vaccination or immunisation details within one secure app. It also provides airline companies and passengers with a contact tracing technology, which uses anonymised data.
A CLOSE EYE
Keeping a citizen’s privacy concerns in perspective, V-Health Passport does not track their live location and provides all data in a secure GDPR compliant framework. This gives citizens a ‘self-sovereign identity’ style technology putting them in control of who, when and how they share their data.
VCode is a secure digital code that powers the V-Health Passport, ensuring it cannot be cloned. Even if a printout or photograph is placed over either of these, it won’t get scanned. The reason is simple. The system works on a call and response system of information between the code and web platform to verify location of the code, user ID and time and date and much more.
According to Davis, V-Health Passport will also facilitate airlines to allow their ‘fit to fly’ passengers to avoid the need for quarantine restrictions, while ensuring their airline ticket or boarding pass is secure.
However, it is not the only tech solution of this kind in the market. Recently, the CommonPass app
was introduced for passengers travelling on Cathay Pacific Airways. They had to upload their COVID19 test results directly on this health-screening app. The airline would then use it for verification when the passenger flew through some airports.
Apps like these are aimed at centralising a passenger’s COVID-19 status and documents for easy access
by airlines and their destination partners. These digitised options can minimise a traveller’s discomfort
while checking into flights during pre-COVID times. It can also help airlines be secure in the knowledge that their passengers are truly fit to fly.
