British cyber technology company VST Enterprises (VSTE) has launched the world’s first public “Fit To Fly” secure health passport designed for air travel. The cross border platform called V-Health Passport can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play by searching for “VPassport” or by visiting www.v-healthpassport.co.uk.
The company says this is the “world’s first publicly available secure digital health passport” that the public can download and use alongside any form of Covid 19 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.
Why does it matter?
VPassport comes at a time when security over the use of bar codes and QR codes in airline travel has come under intense scrutiny following the cyber attack on the former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot. The former PM had his Qantas airline boarding pass hacked. Details including his passport, mobile phone and messages between Qantas staff about him were intercepted. The wider threats of fake Covid 19 test certificates have also been prevalent with an alarming rise in the sales of fake Covid 19 certificates booming in Russia and the Middle East.
VST Enterprises’ solution is the world’s most secure health passport using next-generation VCode code scanning cybersecurity technology. Using the most advanced closed-loop technology with end to end encryption, V-Health Passport has 2.2 Quintillion collision-free combination codes. These decode based on geolocation, time & date, device type and user login — meaning it cannot be hacked.
It can provide airline passengers and airlines with a secure digital passport that validates the passengers’s identity, authenticates their Covid 19 test result and vaccination/immunization details in one secure app. The V-Health Passport also uniquely provides airline passengers and airlines with a contact tracing technology which uses anonymized data.
On the other hand, the technology does not track users’ live location and provides all data in a secure GDPR compliant framework giving citizens a unique “self sovereign identity” style technology putting them in control of who, when and how they share their data.
On the record
“We are the first technology company in the world to have developed a secure, multipurpose, cross corporate & cross government digital health passport that does not rely on using bar codes or QR codes as its authentication technology,” said VSTE CEO and inventor of the VCode technology and V-Health Passport Louis-James Davis. “Both bar codes and QR codes have huge potential security implications as they can be cloned and hacked with the latter being subject to a process called ‘Attagging’. Therefore any suggestion of using this type of technology in a health passport for air travel has very real security risks. Not only is a citizen’s personal information at risk, but their Covid test status, vaccination records and also their credit card information. All of this can lead to the very real potential of a massive data breach and a persons personal information and data hacked and stolen. This is of particular concern when using a bar code or QR code technology designed for use to authenticate a persons Covid 19 testing and/or vaccinations records.”
The context
With the alarming increase and black market trade in fake Covid 19 test certificates this also puts a very real threat and risk to passenger safety on airline carriers with the potential to infect and contaminate other passengers on what would be a Covid safe bubble onboard an aircraft.
V-Health Passport will help employers safely return their employees back to their offices, factories and warehouses. It will facilitate airlines to allow their passengers to be fit to fly and avoid the need for quarantine restrictions. At the same time it will ensure their airline ticket or boarding pass is secure and won’t be hacked.