Why not "COVID" vaccine passports on a blockchain ID

[paxmao]

it would be a safe, secured, difficult to tamper and widely available method of travelling and proving that an individual has had a vaccine. No borders, no language, no need to carry papers around. just you bio linked a a recognised signature and you are good to fly. Perhaps this looks too futuristic, but the technology is already there and could be a great testing ground.

[dothebeats]

Plausible, but I think governments don't have the luxury of time to actually be exploring new areas of proving something just because the technology already exists. While nice to have a single scan to prove X already had vaccine, the transition towards such protocols would be hard on some citizens which aren't used to these things. Perhaps a gradual transition would be good, but right now stick to basics while the experts perfect the tech.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

"Why not "COVID" vaccine passports on a blockchain ID" - because centralized database - simple excell sheet with ID and yes/no annotation in second column is good enough in such case. What extra use case bring blockchain here?

[NeuroticFish]

because centralized database - simple excell sheet with ID and yes/no annotation in second column is good enough in such case. What extra use case bring blockchain here?

I agree, a database would do (not really excel, but you have a point).

I was thinking at first that there's a risk that somebody could alter records there (make fake passports). But then somebody can just add records to blockchain and it's the same result.
And maintaining a database is much much easier and cheaper than for a blockchain.

Let's not use blockchains just for the sake of it, OK?

[Charles-Tim]

First of all, I will like to address the issue of third parties, with this method, our information are sold just like the way big companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google are selling our data. If big companies like these can sell our day, why can't other companies do just the same, of this way is continuingly to be followed, it will not let peoples private information to be safe, which is the reason we truly need decentralized identity.

Also it will be good to go against the use of physical documents because they can be easily forged

At the same time, all but the most elaborate physical documents can be forged. In many areas of the world, paper cards, PDFs and printed emails are being accepted as valid proof of COVID-19 testing. Similar methods are being considered for vaccination proof, requiring just the recipient’s name, the type of vaccination, date, location and provider. How is this likely to turn out? Recently, a group was arrested for selling fake COVID-19 test results at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport. Unless physical proofs of vaccination have the tamper proof qualities of actual passports, they will be forged.

Why not "COVID" vaccine passports on a blockchain ID

There will be nothing like "COVID" vaccine passports on a blockchain ID, nothing like individuals identity (be it passport or any other identity) that will be stored on the decentralized distributed ledger, it will be verifiable credentials that will be used, which is a form that does not contain any individual information but a form that validate that someone has been vaccinated, in this way, users data remains to the users privately.

Verifiable credentials mitigate all these problems. A verifiable credential can be issued by a health provider to prove that you have been tested or vaccinated. The form of that credential is written to a distributed ledger — but not the content. So, if you are asked for proof of a COVID-19 test, the proof is the form of that credential and the specific cryptographic keys that show it has been issued to you. The content — all your personal data, including the outcome of the test — is held by you and you alone. You get to decide if you share that information or not. The form it is bundled in — the credential — is the only thing that needs to be verified as coming from an authentic source.

Decentralized identity means that people have control over their own private information instead of being required to relinquish it to some corporate database. Additionally, because the form of the credential and proof of issuance are written to a distributed ledger, verifiable credentials are tamper-proof and cannot be forged. They can also be simply and quickly reissued to adapt to new medical information and government mandates.

[pugman]

because centralized database - simple excell sheet with ID and yes/no annotation in second column is good enough in such case. What extra use case bring blockchain here?

I agree, a database would do (not really excel, but you have a point).

I was thinking at first that there's a risk that somebody could alter records there (make fake passports). But then somebody can just add records to blockchain and it's the same result.
And maintaining a database is much much easier and cheaper than for a blockchain.

Let's not use blockchains just for the sake of it, OK?

This.

I don't see a good enough reason for blockchain to come in between of Covid-19 vaccination. Every country has their own way of vaccinating their people; Some of them use centralized medical record IDs that track each patient and their history.

And besides you're forgetting the point that all countries have started their vaccination process, upgrading their system midway through will only be chaos. Also, not everyone is equipped to understand blockchain. People find excel hard, let alone blockchain. I can make so many more arguments but this should suffice.

Read: Not everything needs to be decentralized. Not everything needs to be centralized. There needs to be a bridge across these two.

[aioc]

it would be a safe, secured, difficult to tamper and widely available method of travelling and proving that an individual has had a vaccine. No borders, no language, no need to carry papers around. just you bio linked a a recognised signature and you are good to fly. Perhaps this looks too futuristic, but the technology is already there and could be a great testing ground.

It's a good idea but with the time frame I don't think it can be implemented, vaccination is already implemented and now ongoing, every country has its own system, to track who gets it first and when he will get it, in my country alone with the limited incoming vaccine, we have set of people who will get it first, it will take a year before everybody here gets vaccinated.

[franky1]

a blockchain is about chaining blocks where it can show a change of current status overtime via new blocks.. but traceable back to source, also works best if the entire network has all the data.

a covid certificate is a single entry that does not need to be 'spent' so needing new proceeding blocks is a useless feature.

there are other validation methods that dont use a chain and dont require all nodes to hold all data of the entire network

..
take simple message signing feature bitcoin uses.
imagine US health department has a list of registered vaccine centres.
it lists their public keys

having a registered vaccine centre sign a message that includes:
the persons passport number(no name no address no details. just number)
day
and what number in the vaccine queue

then each signature is unique and can be verified it was signed by a registered vaccine centre without needing to hold that data on a database
they just check the public key against the health department list.
then use the public key against the message and signature independently(no special network)

no databases no secret network. just signatures and public keys
the airline can then check the passport number in the message matches the passport number of the passenger. and boom. check complete. no vaccine database needed to be shared with airlines. no personal info revealed, no way for passengers to trade certificates

[CaVO32]

it would be a safe, secured, difficult to tamper and widely available method of travelling and proving that an individual has had a vaccine. No borders, no language, no need to carry papers around. just you bio linked a a recognised signature and you are good to fly. Perhaps this looks too futuristic, but the technology is already there and could be a great testing ground.

It's a good idea but with the time frame I don't think it can be implemented, vaccination is already implemented and now ongoing, every country has its own system, to track who gets it first and when he will get it, in my country alone with the limited incoming vaccine, we have set of people who will get it first, it will take a year before everybody here gets vaccinated.

It is great idea, yes. But I do agree with you, most governments will find it difficult to implement as most of them don't even have the grasp of how blockchain technology works. But if one country will apply blockchain tech on this endeavor and be successful, that will be a good example to other countries, and can be replicated easy. We only need one country to implement blockchain tech on this task and be a guinea pig. I hope we will see that day to happen.

[zanezane]

a blockchain is about chaining blocks where it can show a change of current status overtime via new blocks.. but traceable back to source, also works best if the entire network has all the data.

a covid certificate is a single entry that does not need to be 'spent' so needing new proceeding blocks is a useless feature.

There, @franky1 already said it. Vaccine passports are just one time use so I agree with @franky1's argument that vaccine passport is useless. Not to mention that there are other anti-tampering tools that the government is using to prevent that possibility, you all act like the government hasn't encountered this kind of problem before just to justify that blockchain or anything related to it is needed. Not to mention that it would be a bother for the government who doesn't want unnecessary spending to create their own blockchain network or risk having to hitch in the current network that is already congested.

[Charles-Tim]

I was thinking at first that there's a risk that somebody could alter records there (make fake passports). But then somebody can just add records to blockchain and it's the same result.

It is completely different. For example, if I have been vaccinated by a health official, I will be given the credential about it (and remain to me alone), and also be validated on the decentralized ledger which can be verified through a form that will be given me with a specific cryptographic key which will serves as prove. The form with the specific cryptographic key key will be used to verify if truly I am recorded on the blockchain as one of the people that has been vaccinated. If I want to manipulate in this case, before I can manipulate anything, I will have to make a deal with a health official that do vaccinate people to help me validate a form with a cryptographic key on blockchain. Without this, no way to manipulate, but not compared to physical documents that I can make the fake ones from anywhere which is a lot easier.

And maintaining a database is much much easier and cheaper than for a blockchain.
Let's not use blockchains just for the sake of it, OK?

This is a way our credentials (data) can be safe, it will remain with us than on a third party database, only the form will be on blockchain which has no credential of us. Unlike physical credentials in which blockchain is not used, there must be a database for collecting our vaccination data report. And the positive thing about this is that, it is the method suggested to be used, which will help protect peoples data from third party, although, still at its earliest age.

[paxmao]

"Why not "COVID" vaccine passports on a blockchain ID" - because centralized database - simple excell sheet with ID and yes/no annotation in second column is good enough in such case. What extra use case bring blockchain here?

Because you would need a world database, because the governments have incompatible systems, because it can be tampered with... I think you have not though this over.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

Because you would need a world database, because the governments have incompatible systems

Blockchain does not change anything here. You have to have global database (something like excel sheet) or global software to add records to blockchain and the duty to teach thousands of people how to use the new system etc.

global centralized database might be close to free. Adding records to blockchain is expensive.

because it can be tampered with...

What for? Who would want to manipulate the information about who is vaccinated and who not, except for units that do not want to be vaccinated, but these will not have access to a centralized database anyway.

What blockchain change here? You will be able to add anything you want in there. You only would not be able to change anything.
And in the case of this blockchain application, you do not need to change anything in the blockchain to make it tampered, person resposible for adding records to add "mr xxx just received vaccine" while in fact he didn't.

Blockchain is expensive and should not be applied everywhere where it is possible.

[joniboini]

As far as I can remember, there are several projects who already did this (or at least claimed that they're working on blockchain-based COVID passports). ID2020 might be the latest one that I know, they're working with some DPoS blockchain project if I recall correctly.

Pretty sure they won't use Bitcoin or Ethereum network since the cost might be way too much.

[Kakmakr]

Have you traveled to 3rd world countries yet? Most of the infrastructure there are ancient and these people hardly have electricity and water, so you will not be able to go to these countries, if that was one of the requirements.

Also processes like this can easily be defrauded .... because there are always "humans" behind the capturing of this data that has to go onto the Blockchain. (Some Vaccines will also have to be repeated over and over again... ) 

[coin-investor]

As far as I can remember, there are several projects who already did this (or at least claimed that they're working on blockchain-based COVID passports). ID2020 might be the latest one that I know, they're working with some DPoS blockchain project if I recall correctly.

Pretty sure they won't use Bitcoin or Ethereum network since the cost might be way too much.

The world needs something like this while the vaccination is still ongoing, so we have a database of people who got vaccinated, this will not be the last virus or pandemic that we are going to encounter, and by having this we have something in place already, maybe fifty years from now we will encounter another new virus that will set up a new pandemic, we are in a modern era we should make something easy for the next generation.   

[iamsheikhadil]

It can be a good idea, but as you said, it's too futuristic, and our governments are lazy as sloth, so why would they really care implementing such product and technology when they can just enjoy the luxury of their beautiful cars and houses?! I do however think that, the blockchain can be better used for other more useful purposes if it's used by government rather than proving someone have had covid, because there are lots of problems with higher priorities that can be solved using blockchain technology.

[masterzino]

it would be a safe, secured, difficult to tamper and widely available method of travelling and proving that an individual has had a vaccine. No borders, no language, no need to carry papers around. just you bio linked a a recognised signature and you are good to fly. Perhaps this looks too futuristic, but the technology is already there and could be a great testing ground.

Because this will cut the black market and the black market will be very actual in some regions globally (including my own country).

People always want to have access 'to another way' which is blocked by the blockchain, especially for controversies like mass vaccination.

[Taskford]

it would be a safe, secured, difficult to tamper and widely available method of travelling and proving that an individual has had a vaccine. No borders, no language, no need to carry papers around. just you bio linked a a recognised signature and you are good to fly. Perhaps this looks too futuristic, but the technology is already there and could be a great testing ground.

Government doesn't know much about blockchain system works that's why you can see that they are still using the old method, and its long research to make this thing happen and this is not the time for doing some test regarding on using it on vaccine passport, maybe on other important things if they really want to explore the wide use of blockchain ecosystem.

[semobo]

it would be a safe, secured, difficult to tamper and widely available method of travelling and proving that an individual has had a vaccine. No borders, no language, no need to carry papers around. just you bio linked a a recognised signature and you are good to fly. Perhaps this looks too futuristic, but the technology is already there and could be a great testing ground.

Its can be one of the great utilization of blockchain technology, however it should be implemented throughout the world to work which maybe the issue because we can't expect to have such kind of fast adoption all over the world. They may choose to adopt only if developed countries started to utilize this kind of passports.