The ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (ABIS) 2021 yesterday welcomed a launch of the ASEAN Digital Gateway and Travel Wallet project, aimed at facilitating a safer, seamless and standardised approach to resuming regional travel.
The initiative was announced by Haslina Taib, Chair of the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit 2021, as the second legacy project by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council.
By leveraging digital technology, the solution will address common issues faced by travelers such as carrying or misplacing multiple documents, concerns over sharing data internationally or risk being turned away at borders for inconsistent health protocols across different countries.
In her speech, Haslina attributed the solution as a joint effort between the public and private sectors in the region, in response to the ASEAN Declaration on the ASEAN Travel Corridor Framework adopted in the last ASEAN Summit 2020.
The ASEAN Travel Wallet app will provide travellers with a value-add and easy to use mobile experience on their smartphones, to obtain, access, store and display required health and vaccination records for quick and hassle-free verification at destination countries.
Only relevant public data, such as citizen’s identification; vaccination type, date, and validity; and/or COVID recovery date, will be issued via a back-end national administration dashboard to each Wallet holder in the form of QR code. The same set of data is then shared to the ASEAN Digital Gateway.
Haslina explained, “The ASEAN Digital Gateway is an open, shared platform that allows each ASEAN member state to control its own citizens’ data, while issuing only a public key. This will be encrypted as genuine, tamper-proof credentials on private permissioned blockchain.”
“The Gateway drives standardisation of cross border and business entry protocols, while respecting data privacy and protecting interests. Each subscribing member country autonomously integrates its own national Covid response applications and manages its own verifiers, both from the public and private sector,” she added.
Currently at prototype stage, ABIS 2021 called for a series of collaborative actions among ASEAN member states and businesses, to jointly develop and deploy the ASEAN Digital Gateway and Travel Wallet as a multilateral project, paving the way for economic recovery and safer travel corridor in the region.
Access to the Proof of Concept and requests for a demonstration or the technical concept paper can be made via https://bit.ly/2ZoKc2B
Release date: 26 October 2021