Health ‘passport’ ready

The Barbados-based international Blockchain company, OneLedger, which focuses on enterprise solutions, has launched its International Health Passport to combat the global pandemic, COVID-19.

President George Connolly has officially announced the launch of the passport which has been in testing over the past four months in Canada and which provides holders with a health passport with secured health information accessible from their cell phone. OneLedger has an office in Barbados.

“The OneLedger International Health Passport provides a secure and verifiable system that can authenticate the entire immunization health records of travellers moving across borders,” Connolly said.

When a tourist to Barbados wants to travel from Canada or another country to the island they would first go to a registered health facility and obtain the COVID-19 tests which are then recorded on a Blockchain where the information is secure and tamper-proof. The traveller may also request a hard copy of these tests.

The information on the Blockchain is accessible via an APP downloaded to the visitor’s cell phone. If the visitor then travels to Barbados they can present their cell phone and provide the health and immigration officers access to the COVID-19 tests via the APP.

Connolly said the OneLedger universal health wallet is designed to stimulate visitor arrivals, get people back on the job and could help protect the country against the spread of the Coronavirus. Additionally, he said the International Health Passport would be easy to use and could be the most competitively-priced product of its type on the global market.

“The OneLedger International Passport provides countries with an opportunity to re-start their tourism and hospitality sectors and could potentially save lives,” Connolly remarked.

He noted that the company has been partnering with Windsor-Essex Economic Development Corporation and WEtech Alliance, in addition to Ontario Centres for Excellence, the Autonomous Vehicle Integration Network (AVIN) and the Institute for Border Logistics and Security (IBLS) to test the passport.

“Our target is to hit 40 million downloads by the end of the first quarter of 2021,” Connolly said. (HH)