A COVID-19 lockdown that prevented him from seeing his son since the end of 2019 was a major factor that inspired innovator, Dr Nick Boden, to develop a game-changing travel app that carries a health passport.

The South African-born Boden told The Malaysian Insight the yearning to see his son and the motivation to make travelling safer and hassle-free in a Covid-19 disrupted world, inspired him to come up with this app.

Called Immunitee, the app is designed to store personal laboratory tests results, immunisation records and vaccine data.

This app will help to facilitate users’ clearance at border health checkpoints, ensuring data protection and security through blockchain, and verifying the authenticity of Covid-19 tests and vaccines.

“When the travel bubble opens, people would not just share their biometric information but you’ll layer healthcare information on top of that. That is a completely different confidentiality one needs to deal with.

“Moreover, we have already seen that there are a lot of fake certificates, whether it is (Covid-19) swab tests or vaccine certificates.

“So, we wanted to secure that (results) directly from the laboratory onto a customer’s blockchain, where no one else can access it, edit it, and sell the information.

“We felt it would be important to give people the confidence that their healthcare information is stored securely. We built a blockchain where these credentials are stored safely,” Boden, who has lived in Malaysia for 18 years, told The Malaysian Insight.

Elaborating more on the idea to build such a platform, Boden said besides being a healthcare professional, his love for his son, whom he has not seen for almost 18 months now, motivated him to come up with such an idea.

“I have a 12-year-old son living in South Africa and I haven’t seen him since December 2019 because of the lockdown and because of the South African variant, there are real restrictions.

“He is a Malaysian citizen living in and going to school in South Africa. So, I was thinking how to get back to go see him for his birthday, Christmas and other times and it started to become very obvious that it is going to be very difficult.

“Different countries are going to have different requirements, different vaccinations rates and we need to find a way that regardless of what situation you’re in, we are always making sure that there is not a possibility that a fake test is going to shut down the air travel bubble.

“It is a bit of a lockdown idea but also something that just seems really obvious to me as a healthcare professional,” he said.

The Immunitee Health Passport is accepted in Singapore, via Affinidi’s digital, universal verification platform.

On April 10, Immunitee successfully completed its first live passenger verification from KL International Airport to the city state.

In partnership with Qualitas Medical Group, the passenger did his polymerase chain reaction swab test at a Qualitas clinic, and had his results electronically stored directly onto the blockchain allowing his QR code in the Immunitee app to be successfully read and accepted by immigration in Singapore.

Boden said it was an important milestone for them because it showed that people can move through international borders quickly, without hassle and safely.

He also said it was also an achievement as Immunitee was accepted into another country.

How the app works

Boden said the process of using the app is very simple, where one needs to download, register and get a “private” key upon subscription to access the blockchain and use it to travel.

He said any government authority and organisation, including the national healthcare systems, immigration systems, hotels, universities and schools could only access the information by scanning a secure QR code.

The QR code contains all the relevant testing and vaccination information, and can only be unlocked using a private “key” that belongs to the user.

“When one shows the QR code, it means giving permission to a person allowing them to read your information.

“You’re basically sharing information with someone who is on that system as well. They have to be registered and authenticated with their own token for them to be able to read, and the QR code is time-sensitive.

“So, whether a clinic, immigration or an airline, they also need to be authenticated in the system as well,” he said, adding that the code cannot be scanned with a normal QR code scanner.

Boden also said that as the developers of the app, even they do not have access to customers’ information.

“We as an app company, have no visibility of who our users are and what their test results are.

“We don’t know. That information belongs to the users and they get to choose who they share the information with,” he added.

Looking at an annual subscription fee of RM99 per year, Boden said the app allows users to add dependents onto a single account, thereby reducing the cost per person.

“The ability to add multiple family members in one app is also brought into the system as well.

“So, at RM99 per year, it works out to around RM0.30 per day. Quite affordable,” he said.

Boden said they are also exploring at the idea of pay-per-use for less frequent travellers.

Expansion

Boden said they are already expanding to other countries but are finalising in terms of getting laboratories and healthcare partners onboard.

Even in Malaysia, he said at the moment they have partnered with Qualitas Medical Group but added that they are expanding the clinics almost every week.

Although Immunitee provides service to store healthcare data, Boden said they are also looking at giving special rates for users to conduct tests at partnering clinics.

“We are exploring to create a community benefit in and around using Immunitee,” Boden said.

Malaysian borders, like others around the world, have been closed since last year due to the pandemic. International travel is only expected to pick up again after a large portion of the world population is vaccinated. – April 30, 2021.