Digital Health Passport Could Open the Door to Safe International Air Travel

A digital health passport may be the answer to resuming safe international travel, and for global sports, competitions to start up again without any quarantine issues. 

British cybersecurity firm, VST Enterprises, shared the details of their V-Health Passport on Thursday via a press release.

A new digital passport 

Could life resume as normal thanks to a secure digital health passport? VST Enterprises believes so, as does former U.K. Sports Minister Richard Caborn, who was paramount in bringing the 2012 Olympics to London.

The company has created the V-Health Passport, which runs on the groundbreaking cybersecurity tech VCode. The passport is ready to hit the ground running and checks COVID-19 tests that include both antigen and antibody testing. 

The hope is for the digital passport to help resume international air travel, and allow sports teams to be exempt from travel quarantines that are being put into place. The U.K. and Germany, among others, are deploying a 14 day strict self-quarantine as of June 8 for anyone entering the countries.

Such a digital health passport would help in safely bypassing these restrictions. 

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Caborn praised it by saying "This is a major breakthrough for all sports to allow their athletes and teams to travel across borders using a health passport."

He continued "Whilst testing is the key to ascertaining health status, the missing part of this is the mechanism is the official verification and validation that you have taken a test. The health passport not only confirms who you are, as it's been verified alongside your passport but also confirms the COVID-19 test status and when this test was administered."

CEO and founder of VST Enterprises, Louis-James Davis, explained "A digital health passport is the key to unlocking quarantine restrictions for anyone who is traveling from country to country."

Pleased to announce our #royal #ambassadors @vstenterprises.#projectrestart #sports #technology #tech #RoyalFamily #vcode #vhealth @VCode @Telegraph @DailyMailUK @hellomagazin pic.twitter.com/0nSd1hGBKo

— Louis-James Davis (@louisjamesdavis) May 28, 2020

How does it work? 

Nice and simple: the COVID-19 test is taken by a health professional who then uploads the information into the app, using a traffic light system. Red signifies a positive test, green indicates negative, and amber is the countdown clock until the next test is due. 

The person using the V-Health Passport would easily be identifiable by comparing it against their own ID, without any personal information being shared online. 

The digital health passport uses third-generation code scanning technology with ultra-secure end-to-end encryption. 

The system could have a significant impact on air travel where airlines would be able to check a person's I.D. and their digital health passport before they fly. 

Davis added "We believe that V-Health Passport™ will be a passport that all Governments will move towards as a standard part of our digital wallet, in the same way, we have a driver's license and passport to verify our identity and credentials."

It may make traveling during the coronavirus outbreak safe and secure, as a number of airlines are already announcing flights will resume next month.

The VST Enterprises team made an explanatory video about how the technology works: