DHP Framework: Digital Health Passports Using Blockchain -- Use case on international tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic

TL;DR

This paper proposes a blockchain-based framework for digital health passports to facilitate international tourism during COVID-19, addressing privacy, interoperability, and verification issues of contact tracing methods.

Contribution

It introduces the DHP Framework using private blockchain and Proof of Authority to securely issue and verify health passports across borders, enhancing privacy and interoperability.

Findings

Framework supports issuance and verification of health passports

Addresses privacy and interoperability challenges

Provides a secure, distributed infrastructure for health data verification

Abstract

In order to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries enforced extended social distancing measures for several weeks, effectively pausing the majority of economic activities. In an effort to resume economic activity safely, several Digital Contact Tracing applications and protocols have been introduced with success. However, DCT is a reactive method, as it aims to break existing chains of disease transmission in a population. Therefore DCT is not suitable for proactively preventing the spread of a disease; an approach that relevant to certain use cases, such as international tourism, where individuals travel across borders. In this work, we first identify the limitations characterising DCT related to privacy issues, unwillingness of the public to use DCT mobile apps due to privacy concerns, lack of interoperability among different DCT applications and protocols, and the assumption that there is limited, local mobility in the population. We then discuss the concept of a Health Passport as a means of verifying that individuals are disease risk-free and how it could be used to resume the international tourism sector. Following, we present the DHP Framework that uses a private blockchain and Proof of Authority for issuing Digital Health Passports. The framework provides a distributed infrastructure supporting the issuance of DHPs by foreign health systems and their verification by relevant stakeholders, such as airline companies and border control authorities. We discuss the attributes of the system in terms of its usability and performance, security and privacy. Finally, we conclude by identifying future extensions of our work on formal security and privacy properties that need to be rigorously guaranteed via appropriate security protocols.