UK NHS trial for COVID-19 immunity passport begins

The UK National Health Service (NHS) Directors of Public Health will test the COVID-19 immunity passport that was developed by Mvine and iProov. The companies aim to complete two trials by 31 March 2021, providing public health officials in the UK the confidence to deploy the passport at scale. The Mvine-iProov passport allows a person’s COVID-19 test result or vaccination status to be registered and verified without disclosing their identity. The system will not capture or store any identity data and will instead use an ‘abstract mathematical model of the user’s face’ that utilises artificial intelligence (AI) to work out a set of numbers which represent them and cannot be mistaken by anyone else. This unique ID will then be linked to the reference number of their test or vaccine. The passport does not require extensive new infrastructure as it can be plugged into the existing NHS systems.