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- A team of the scholar at the University of Cape Town in South Africa is working on a blockchain-powered application Covi-ID that will offer users to know their own COVID-19 status.
- The team is aiming to launch this application on April 21. The application will offer to enhance contact tracing of infected patients, whereas the users will be able to get a verified COVID-19 status.
- Not only South Africa is working on the project of building an app for contact tracing, but there are also countries like China and Singapore that are hit hard by the pandemic and are developing interoperable applications as well.
On a side where the world is battling with the severe COVID-19 pandemic affecting the lives of several people and burying the economy of various countries, a team of the scholar at the University of Cape Town in South Africa is working on a blockchain-powered application Covi-ID that will offer users to know their own COVID-19 status.
Contact tracing of infected patients
The team is aiming to launch this application on April 21. The application will offer to enhance contact tracing of infected patients, whereas the users will be able to get a verified COVID-19 status. Along with this, the app will reward the users for responsible behavior like staying home during a lockdown.
The app is being built on an authorized self-sovereign identity network Sovrin. The main aim of this app is to provide accurate information related to COVID-19 infection. Not only South Africa is working on the project of building an app for contact tracing, but there are also countries like China and Singapore that are hit hard by the pandemic and are developing interoperable applications as well.
The Covi-ID’s workability
To start with the application, the user has to primarily take a photo to prove its identity along with all other basic information. Each user will be assigned with a QR code that can be printed. The QR code will be scanned by the authorities to prove its COVID-19 status.
The user information will be further stored in custodial wallets, which is similar to a cryptocurrency exchange maintains a user’s currency holdings.
The second process is the user verification. If users try to move on any area that has implemented health screening, by presenting their QR code, they will approval to give read-only access to their COVID-19 status.
A leading member of this project, Co-Pierre Georg stated that the project is being developed on the open-source, decentralized SSI platform Sovrin. He added that the main aim is to offer a large portion of the South African population to use an SSI application. He believes that using QR codes will permit extensive use of the app as it can be scanned by phone cameras, which are very popular in African countries.
Furthermore, the project will offer an open-source application for anyone who is seeking to verify the status of COVID-19.
