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In addition to the vaccine passport, which can show that you are resistant to various diseases, the COVID-19 passport, an electronic document that a person who contracted the disease and acquired immunity might have.
People with such a passport could not only be at the forefront of reviving the country’s economy, but also help members of the quarantined society.
Such an idea was proposed to the British Government by the Lithuanian company iDenfy, which is developing identification technology.
Among the applicant companies, only one Lithuanian
The head of the company and one of the founders is Domantas Čiuldė 15 minutes The Lithuanian company submitted two requests, to create an immunity passport and a tracking request for people in quarantine, after the British government’s National Health Service unit responsible for innovation (NHSX) announced it was looking for technological solutions to combat COVID-19.
Photo from personal archive / Domantas Čiuldė, CEO and co-founder of iDenfy
A total of five companies that developed identification technology from the UK, Germany and Lithuania submitted proposals to create passports or immunity applications that show the results of a recent COVID-19 test.
The Lithuanian idea was also described by the popular international news portal Business Insider.
Waiting for confirmation that you cannot get sick a second time
D. Čiuldė says that hospitals or other medical institutions should collect the necessary data when creating immunity passports, and immunity passports would be created according to these data by a state institution, for example the Ministry of Health (SAM).
Meanwhile, a special app created by Lithuanians, which combines an identity document with facial recognition technology and a QR code, would allow state institutions to verify whether a particular person has an immunity passport or not.
It is true that D. Čiuldė admitted that the development of immunity passports is hampered by one more circumstance: Lithuanians are waiting for the World Health Organization (WHO) to confirm that once COVID-19 becomes ill, it acquires immunity and it does not become infected a second time.
No such evidence exists yet, so the WHO does not recommend the development of immunity passports.
“For now, this question remains open, although there is a tendency for you to have immunity once you get sick and don’t get sick a second time. Such residents could get an immunity passport and could be sent to be the first to revive. the economy ”, D. Čiuldė presented the idea.
After receiving confirmation from the WHO that immunity can be acquired after COVID-19, Lithuanians intend to start developing this product even if their applications are not approved by the British Government.
Česlovas Gelžinis photo / Quarantine time in London
It is true that the implementation of this technology would require additional funds. Since iDenfy already has immunity passport-based authentication technology, it would take the company about two weeks to create an immunity passport.
According to D. Čuldė, this immunity passport will also be relevant in the future, because pandemics can reappear, and by creating an immunity passport, it can be adapted to different diseases.
“Today’s situation shows that we can have more than one pandemic in the future. By creating a system, we could adapt it to use it from the start of a pandemic, and perhaps we would not be as damaging to the economy as we are now. There would be a basis of common data that can be activated at any time and would work during several pandemics: at one time it creates passports of an immunity from disease, at another time, of another “, urged D. Čiuldė to prepare in advance for possible pandemics.
He added that in the same way, this program could show the test results, for example, that it carried out a test two days ago, which was negative.
Photo from 123RF.com / Coronavirus Research
“We perform the identification of a person: we scan their face, biometric data, and then we can associate different things with the person: test results or an immunity passport”, D. Čiuldė introduced the principle of operation.
IDenfy executives also intend to offer an immunity passport solution to Poland.
Inspired by forced quarantine
Lithuanians also proposed to the British government to create a monitoring application for people in quarantine. The idea of such a product for Lithuanians arose in Lithuania with the start of the forced quarantine of Lithuanians returning from abroad to hotels.
“So we had the idea to create a people tracking app that works like this: A person receives a phone call multiple times a day to verify. When you open the iDenfy app, biometric data is scanned, compared to human data in system, to make sure it’s a living person, not a photo, and to verify that the person’s coordinates match the specified quarantine location. And then you can confirm that this person was in that place at the time, “he said D. Čiuldė.
If the person does not respond to the verification request, they are sent repeated notifications every few minutes. If these requests are ignored, the automated system notifies police officers that the person is not conducting an inspection.
D. Čiuldė said that the Lithuanian startup also submitted this application to the Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation (MITA), municipality of Vilnius city, but the application “iDenfy” was not selected.
Proposes the creation of a cross-border database
The idea of creating immunity passports is also being considered by several foreign identification platforms.
IDenfy illustration / facial recognition
For this reason, iDenfy executives have contacted several of these companies to propose a common standard and database for sharing and storing immunity passports, which would allow immunity passports to be valid in different countries.
According to D. Čuldėda, this could also encourage the freer movement of people with immunity between countries. For example, a Lithuanian who arrived in Britain could allow airport staff to scan their immunity passport, which would provide evidence that the person arriving has acquired immunity to the COVID-19 virus.
“It would mean that my profile could be unlocked in another country and checked to see if I have an immunity passport. That would be nice because everyone is developing a similar product, so we could use those devices across different countries. If created without standards, the formats will be different, it will be much more difficult to combine them in the future ”, fear D. Čiuldė.
Illustration IDenfy / Personal identification process
However, D. Čiuldė, who plans to create such technology, emphasizes that after verifying if a person has an immunity passport, officials will not be able to keep it, so personal data will be protected.
The company, which provides remote authentication services and employs about 18 people, has about 100 clients in Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Great Britain, the United States, Australia and other countries. IDenfy’s services are primarily used by fast credit providers and other financial institutions, as well as gambling websites.
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