 As the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2019/2020 unfolds, a COVID-19 'Immunity Passport' has been mooted as a way to enable individuals , especially those in healthcare and other key industries, to return safely back to work at 'the right moment'. Despite a number of ethical, social, legal, and biological dilemmas (e.g. 'COVID-19 antibody testing ' is itself unproven), verifiable test results could well become highly desirable, at least in certain key sectors. But a 'paper certificate' has a number of dilemmas of its own, including weak tamper-proofness and rather arcane and clumsy verifiability. To address many of the underlying issues involved in certification, and as a proof of concept for future pandemics, we have developed a prototype mobile phone app  that facilitates instant verification of tamper-proof test results. Personally identifiable information is only stored at the user's discretion, and the app allows the end-user selectively to present only the specific test result with no other personal information revealed. Behind the scenes it relies upon (a) the 2019 World Wide Web Consortium standard called 'Verifiable Credentials', (b) Tim Berners-Lee's decentralised personal data platform 'Solid', and (c) a consortium Ethereum-based blockchain. These enable the aforementioned mixture of verifiability and privacy in a manner derived from public/private key pairs and digital signatures, generalised to avoid restrictive ownership of sensitive digital keys and/or data. We describe the underlying principles, ethical considerations, and a 9-step usecase scenario .
Goal: As the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2019/2020 unfolds, a COVID-19 'Immunity Passport' has been mooted as a way to enable individuals to return back to work or be admitted to current off-limits locations. While the quality of antibody testing and the likelihood of even attaining COVID-19 immunity continue to be researched, we address the issues involved in providing tamper-proof and privacy-preserving certification, both for COVID-19 immunity and in general. Methods: We developed a prototype mobile phone app and requisite distributed server architecture that facilitates instant verification of tamper-proof test results. Personally identifiable information is only stored at the user's discretion, and the app allows the end-user selectively to present only the specific test result with no other personal information revealed. Behind the scenes it relies upon (a) the 2019 World Wide Web Consortium standard called 'Verifiable Credentials', (b) Tim Berners-Lee's decentralized personal data platform 'Solid', and (c) a consortium Ethereum-based blockchain. Results: Our mobile phone app and distributed server architecture enable the mixture of verifiability and privacy in a manner derived from public/private key pairs and digital signatures, generalized to avoid restrictive ownership of sensitive digital keys and/or data. For the test certificate Holder, Issuer (e.g. doctor, pharmacy) and Verifier (e.g. employer), it is 'just another app' which takes only minutes to use. Conclusions: The app and distributed server architecture offer a prototype proof of concept that is readily scalable, applicable generically, and in effect 'waiting in the wings' for the biological issues, plus key ethical issues raised in the discussion section, to be resolved .
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Goal:
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, especially those in healthcare and other key industries, to return safely
to return
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at 'the right moment'. Despite a number of ethical, social, legal, and biological dilemmas (e.g. 'COVID-19 antibody testing ' is itself unproven), verifiable test results could well become highly desirable, at least in certain key sectors. But a 'paper certificate' has a number of dilemmas of its own, including weak tamper-proofness and rather arcane and clumsy verifiability. To address many of the underlying
or be admitted to current off-limits locations. While the quality of antibody testing and the likelihood of even attaining COVID-19 immunity continue to be researched, we address the
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certification, and as a proof of concept for future pandemics, we have
providing tamper-proof and privacy-preserving certification, both for COVID-19 immunity and in general. Methods: We
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and requisite distributed server architecture
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decentralised
decentralized
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These enable the aforementioned
Results: Our mobile phone app and distributed server architecture enable the
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generalised
generalized
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We describe the underlying principles, ethical considerations, and a 9-step usecase scenario
For the test certificate Holder, Issuer (e.g. doctor, pharmacy) and Verifier (e.g. employer), it is 'just another app' which takes only minutes to use. Conclusions: The app and distributed server architecture offer a prototype proof of concept that is readily scalable, applicable generically, and in effect 'waiting in the wings' for the biological issues, plus key ethical issues raised in the discussion section, to be resolved