covid report verification

As countries  struggle with new lockdown measures in place, businesses are left counting the costs caused by the spread of Coronavirus. Various sectors are facing problems in all aspects of their business, ranging from a decrease in demand of goods and services, disruptions in the supply chain and transportation to export order cancelations and shortages in raw materials. Regardless of the invention of vaccines, economies are still skeptical about what recovery could look like. The need for organisations to focus on rethinking and reconfiguring their businesses according to the new environment has been realised, particularly in the travel industry.

Impact of Coronavirus on the Travel Industry

According to a recent research by United Nations, 45% out of 217 destinations in the world had to completely or partially close down their borders for tourists, 30% had to suspend all international flights, 18% banned entry from specific countries and 7% opted for other measures, such as 14-day self isolation on arrival. Till the world was free from the pandemic, the travel industry was considered one of the most successful global markets. Flight Radar 24 revealed that in 2020, a substantial number of global flights took a hit, with the trend expected to continue as airlines are forced to remove flights from their schedules. Two major trends that emerged in this industry after the pandemic include the following:

1.     Strict Compliance to SOPs

Safety measures being observed across many airports in various destinations  include 6 meter social distancing, mandatory masks, reduction in flight capacity and sanitisation protocols.

2.     Proof Of Negative Corona Test

For those planning to travel abroad, it has become mandatory for passengers to submit a covid-19 test report taken no more than 3 days before departure. Many airports are also providing passengers with the option of taking RDT (Rapid Diagnostic Tests) at the airports to ensure the safety of on-flight passengers and reducing the risk of the virus spreading from one country to another. Unfortunately, fraudsters manipulate the system by providing fake test results to onboard a flight. Therefore, it has become essential to opt for AI-based solutions that make use of QR scanning technology to verify information provided on test reports without any contact.

Manual Verification VS Automated Verification of Covid-19 Report 

The manual process of report verification involves making physical contact with the documents that are exchanged between the passenger and airport staff. Despite maintaining distance and complying to other mandatory SOPs, the risk of the virus spreading between the two parties involved can not be stopped with certainty. Apart from this, verifying the identity of the passenger through a passport and the extraction of data from the covid-19 report while waiting in a queue right before onboarding a flight is a time-consuming process that may be prone to human error. With the help of automated verification solutions at airports, both of these tasks can be accomplished efficiently and accurately within a matter of seconds.

Digital Covid Pass – The Safer Solution

Digital Covid Pass, introduced by Shufti Pro, helps tackle the challenges of manual verification by providing an AI-powered Covid Report Verification solution. In order to be more effective, this automated procedure should be implemented in combination with an automated identity verification process for better authenticity.

Digital Covid Pass solution extracts the QR code embedded in the report. The code contains personal identification details of the passenger, such as their full name and date of birth. In case a person with a positive test report has modified or forged details on their report to board a flight, the information extracted from the code will quickly identify it and alert the airport staff. Further assessments of that passenger can then be carried out as considered appropriate by the airport officials.

In Short

  • Safety measures are being observed across many airports worldwide
  • It has become mandatory for passengers to submit a covid-19 test report taken no more than 3 days before departure
  • Manual verification system is a time-consuming and risky process, especially due to the spread of coronavirus and needs to be replaced with an automated verification system
  • Most passengers don’t associate passports and health checks at airports with a quick and pleasant experience, however this is exactly what Digital Covid Pass aims to achieve

By Anurag Rathod

Anurag Rathod is an Editor of Appclonescript.com, who is passionate for app-based startup solutions and on-demand business ideas. He believes in spreading tech trends. He is an avid reader and loves thinking out of the box to promote new technologies.