Last week the Caribbean Island of Aruba started trialing the Happy Traveler Card together with aerospace industry-owned tech organization SITA and Indicio.tech. This digital health credential enables COVID-19 tested visitors to enter shops, restaurants, nightclubs and other venues. Today digital identity startup Indicio announced that the technology solution, Cardea, has been accepted as an open-source Linux Foundation Public Health (LFPH) project.
To visit Aruba, travelers need to have a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours of arrival. A negative test credential can be shared with Aruba’s Health Department to receive a Happy Traveler Card by using the app. In turn, the Happy Traveler Card credential enables the tourist to enter various venues without sharing a lot of personal information.
The credential can be verified using blockchain. Importantly no personal data is stored on the blockchain. It’s primarily used to check cryptographic keys that confirm the Aruba Health Department issued the credential and that it has not been revoked.
“It is vital to ensure we open borders safely and securely, and this trial puts us one step closer to single travel token that will give passengers more control and convenience by allowing them to securely share their credentials with governments, airports, and airlines from their mobile device,” said Diana Einterz, SITA President for the Americas.
SITA quotes a recent IATA survey that found 78% of people will use a travel credential app only if they have full control over their data. Travel body IATA also has a health credential app, the IATA Travel Pass, developed by another digital identity firm Evernym.
Aruba also supports another initiative, the CommonPass for arrivals via JetBlue.
Open source
Indicio says that by open-sourcing the code, public health agencies can deploy simple-to-use and privacy-first COVID solutions. The Cardea solution itself is based on three open-source protocols – Indy, Aries and Ursa – from Hyperledger, which is also part of the Linux Foundation.
“We look forward to helping the project thrive within the LFPH community and grow to become one of the reference implementations for the interoperable standards we’re developing within the COVID-19 Credentials Initiative,” said Brian Behlendorf, General Manager of Blockchain, Healthcare, and Identity at the Linux Foundation.
