According to local news reports, the government-owned investment firm SGInnovate and Singaporean startup Accredify have jointly developed a new blockchain-powered digital health passport. Development work on the application, which allows personal medical data to be stored in a blockchain-secured digital wallet, began in May. In July, a successful pilot project showed that the app could manage and verify different digitized healthcare documents, including COVID-19 discharge memos, swab results, immunity proof, and vaccination records — more than 1.5 million times.
SGInnovate has a track record of working with blockchain technology.
For the pilot, the health passport app was introduced as a new feature in the Singapore Manpower Ministry’s FWMOMCARE app. The latter is a mobile application that was launched in May to help monitor and report migrant workers’ daily health status during the pandemic. SGInnovate is funded by Singapore’s Ministry of Finance and has a track record of engagement with the blockchain space. The digital health passport app has been built on the Open Attestation platform, which is an open-sourced framework for notarising documents using the blockchain tech, developed by the Singapore government’s CIO office, GovTech.
Regulators around the world take a serious look at blockchain amid the pandemic.
As reported earlier, Singapore had reported that it witnessed a 30% growth in its blockchain sector. Not just Singapore, many other countries witnessed substantial growth in the blockchain industry. Regulators across countries have acknowledged blockchain tech’s potential, and many are onboard with its mass adoption. The blockchain tech, which was launched as a technology to underpin the leading cryptocurrency, bitcoin, is now being used in many sectors. The technology is currently being used in fields, including healthcare and logistics. South Korea recently revealed its plan to use blockchain in the healthcare sector.
