Will COVID Vaccine Passports Be A Route Back to Normality – And If so How

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My name is Peter Ferry I’m the CEO of a company  called SICCAR I’m based in Edinburgh and   I’ve asked the other members of the of the panel  to give me an interesting fact about themselves   my own interesting fact is that as we're talking  today about the issuing of credentials and   certificates I’m also in a part-time job  issuing travel docents and identity cards   because as well as being the CEO of SICCAR  I’m also the honorary consul of Estonia in   Scotland now today's discussion is about the  hope i guess that coronavirus vaccination   now that it can offer some hope that we  can normal life can resume post lockdown   there are still some serious risks  of outbreak in the foreseeable future now we shouldn't forget that in the UK we  marked yesterday the one year anniversary   of a series of lockdown events and there's  been a tragic loss of life and livelihoods   that followed and today we're talking about  some of the systems that can potentially   manage some of these risks popularly those  systems that might be put in place at borders   but also perhaps inevitably in other industry  sectors like hospitality and education and   really wherever individuals need to be in  in close contact with each other or access   shared spaces now these systems some may feel are  inevitable vaccine passports and other derivatives   and all our lives may be impacted by them  so technology solutions have rushed in to   address some of these requirements but there  are concerns that perhaps in returning society   to normal there are some unintended consequences  for privacy and personal freedoms in in sharing   some of this this data and that's really why  today we have assembled the group of leaders that   you have before you that who are going to debate  and discuss some of the technology public health   the privacy the ethical issues the society have  to balance in in building the next generation of   health systems that can manage the covered  pandemic and future pan pathogen threats to   global health so as i as i said before I’m the  I’m the founder of SICCAR my company deliver   cross-organizational distributed ledgers to  secured data and improve outcomes for citizens and   we work across the public sector in education in  health in social care and in local government my   own background is in the it industry and I’m  formally an author of the Scottish government   public publication distributed ledger technology  and public services but my role today is purely   as a host and to stare the discussion I’m joined  today firstly by dr Edgar Whitley who is should be   he's waving now and he is an associate professor  at the lsc the London school of economics   his interesting fact today is he is  between lectures he's just delivered a   lecture on open data and has to sprint off  to another lecture immediately after this   Edgar's credentials here is he's been working  around a strong identity systems for over a decade   with UK government and several international  governments and recently contributed to the   ada lovelace institute's review of  the efficacy of vaccine passports   secondly we're joined by Maarja-Liis ferry she is  the e-health lead for SICCAR she today is based in   Dundee and interestingly for her she's  actually working at the moment as a vaccinator   her work for SICCAR involves contextualizing the  decentralized trust technologies around managing   data and citizen consent in health and social  care and she's the author of a docent around   covert 19 transmission risk certification which  argues for dynamic certification of transmission   risk based on vaccine and testing which I’m sure  she'll talk about as we move through this next up   we have joining us from dublin Anthony  day who is a blockchain partner   with IBM and i believe Anthony's a  partner in in the IBM UK organisation   and he leads that some of the transformational  technology in which includes blockchain and he   is the author of the interesting fact  about him is he he's the author of a   very interesting podcast called blockchain won't  save the world I’m looking forward to hear him   hearing him talking about sharing some real world  examples about IBM's work in vaccine credentials   in europe and last but certainly not least we have  dr Ain Aaviksoo who's joining us from talon today   now especially interesting for Ain is that he has  a medical doctor background and he's got one foot   in the camps of medicine and in i.t and has done  so for the past couple of decades he's he's got   a stellar curriculum vitae that includes tech  entrepreneurship and he's worked at the highest   senior level in the digital public administration  of Estonia but joins us today in the context of   being chief medical officer for god time who are  a software company with a platform that enables   trust across organizations and god time  have worked in piloting a smart vaccine   certificate in the republic of Estonia and  have some commercial offerings which he'll   which Ain will also talk about so in a normal  interactive setting we would now pause for   applause whilst i asked you to thank your thank  your panel but we'll just have to settle for the   the zoom clap symbol which you might find  towards the bottom of your zoom window   and I’ll move straight ahead to kick things off  with by starting to discuss some of the guidance   around vaccine passports that we  have started to see from the world   health organization the world health organization  published some interim guidance around vaccine   passport passports just earlier this week  the sorry at the end of last week in fact   and their context was really  around the interoperability   of documentation around vaccine status which  they call smart vaccination certificates svcs   with a context which is certainly about covered  first but taking a more foundational approach   for interoperability around the world the use is  about presenting a vaccination docent which allows   its owner to claim they've received a vaccine  which can be verified by that vaccination source   with a context around continuity of care and  defining multiple types of use for that vaccine   certificate which we'll we'll go on to discuss  and in that docent it positions the world health   organizations as a as a trust broker and takes a  very much an agile approach over the coming months   between now and june around seeking consultation  with international governments to define how such   systems can move forward so with that background  I’d like now to talk to turn to the scope and the   utility of vaccine passports and and more  generally of covert health status certification so   I’ll turn first of all to Edgar  Whitley who's been waiting patiently so   Edgar as we as we start to kick off with the  question of if we if we start to understand   the the effectiveness of of the vaccines that  which are now being delivered into the community   what what is the context what's the question  that covered status certification is the is   the answer to and how can it be used in in  society so i think that's a that's a really   good question because it really pushes at  the heart of what it is that we are trying to   use this technology to actually achieve so it's  interesting that you talked about the world health   organization's guidance around proof vaccination  now proof vaccination is an important part   but of course that all that effectively tells us  is that you've had a vaccine stuck in your arm   and at a certain point in time which vaccine  which batch etc etc if we're thinking about   using that information as part of opening up  our societies back to a more normal situation   then of course that there's an important  distinction between the fact that you've   been vaccinated which is ultimately a  personal that the main benefit is personal   the vaccine seem to suggest that the likelihood of  severe illness hospitalization and possibly death   is much reduced for those individuals who've  been vaccinated and that clearly has important   consequences for healthcare management etc what  the scientific evidence is much less clear about   at this point in time is what effect vaccination  has on the transmissibility of the disease   now everyone is hoping that people who have  been vaccinated are also less transmissible   but and that's the but that's the point that  becomes really important for reopening society   over and above the relaxation of restrictions that  different countries are going to have at different   points in time so if you've been vaccinated what  does that then tell us about what you can do   more freely in society I’m lucky enough or I’m  old enough to have just been vaccinated in the UK   and the guidance basically says at the moment you  will still be expected to do social distancing   you'll still be encouraged to be mass wearing  etc because we simply do not know what the   long-term effects in terms of transmissibility  are going to be and so if you're thinking about   using this status for reopening a domestic  economy as opposed to international travel   I’m really I’m unclear as to what additional  benefits you are going to get so if the pubs   or pop gardens are reopening from april the 12th  in the UK which is the current plan and i could   sit in the pub garden in groups of six outside in  the cold because it will still be cold in the UK   what difference will it make that I’ve been  vaccinated or not will i be allowed to sit more   closely to my friends will there be half of the  beer garden for the vaccinated people to sit close   to each other and keep warm and everybody else  to sit more far apart so really working through   what that would mean in a domestic context  for at that point where we do not know   even if we expect that vaccination will also  affect transmission so i think that's a really   useful starting point for understanding  what the normality is that we're aiming for   thanks very much Edgar that's so that's very  interesting so they potentially unclear whether   vaccination status actually can help us reopen  some of these industries that are mentioned in the   in the in the preamble just as a further question  what it might be the what what's the status on   on our learning and a research around  understanding at some point in the future   if we might have better information about  how vaccination impacts transmissibility   so all the expectations and all the hopes are  that vaccines for kobe will act in very similar   ways to other vaccines that we already have that  will limit the extent of transmission but we   formally we just don't know at this point  in time and for countries like the UK   if additionally we've managed to  do a very successful vaccination   rollout then the risk of people being infected  if it is slightly more transmissible than we   hope it's going to be again the consequences  for the health care system will still be limited   because most of those people won't end up  being hospitalized etc so it's so the UK   with its timing is in a very particular position  that other countries around the globe i know don't that don't then need to do that so this question  just come would a vaccination proof allow me   to not register in a restaurant so i mean there's  a couple of points there so would it allow me to   not register in a restaurant and give up personal  information well if the restaurant is already   doing a socially distanced service then i don't  see what additional benefit you're going to do   what information you're giving well at  the moment certainly in the UK you're just   checking into these locations and that data is  only used for contact tracing rather than sharing   more personal data taking time off  work again it's not clear what's the   what evidence you're collecting but just prove  that you've been vaccinated just means that you   are unlikely to be hospitalized that doesn't  mean that you won't get sick and it possibly   doesn't mean that you're not going to transmit  the disease even if you're not going to be   hospitalized yourself yeah we really have a  lot of scientific uncertainty at this point   at this point okay thank you and just to finish  it on this topic turning to miss ferry what's the   what might what's your feeling on the beyond  vaccination what's the broader context of   of COVID and other pathogen health status and its  verification and role in re reopening the economy   well i think it largely remains to be seen  and specific challenges are going to present   themselves as we begin to open things up again  so i mean society's not been opened up in a   significant way really since the start of lockdown  maybe maybe to some extent down in england during   the smer and there's a rush at the moment to get  solutions in place but i think COVID and other   pathogens of you know zoonotic origin are the long  haul and when you start thinking in that way so   it's not necessarily how are we all going to go  on holiday this smer but rather how are we all   going to continue to move and interact safely  over the next 10 15 years and into the future   and colbit started in the UK with a handful of  imported cases and here we are a year later we're   still unlocked in so i think an important point to  sort of focus on is preventing even one avoidable   transmission event is actually important to the  ongoing public health of the entire country and   globally so one imported case or one transmission  can lead to a whole country shutting down   and that's just unfortunately how these how these  diseases work and so you know a combination of   vaccine testing status might indeed facilitate you  know easing of restrictions opening public life   but as Edgar was saying you know vaccination  doesn't necessarily confirm unity we don't know   about the impact of transmission and when we look  at testing there's a variety of tests available   with different levels of effectiveness so it's  going to be about those levels of risk what's   acceptable for a large scale outdoor event  versus indoors at a cinema or a wedding and   you know the UK government's currently running an  event's research program to study the impact of   more intensive testing for larger scale events  but there's practicalities to this and how the   sensitive information will actually be shared  securely with the venue or the relevant party in   question so there's a lot of unknowns but i think  we need to focus going forward on avoiding forgery   and preserving privacy for the individual and  also making it simple for the end user because   at the end of the day nothing's going to work on  a global or a national scale unless it's simple at   the point of use so thanks for that Maarja i think  also your earlier point there that the nature of   the systems required might change as the as we get  into later stages of the pandemic and the dealing   perhaps with apologies if i use the wrong language  with smaller outbreaks more than a more endemic   situation okay so shifting on and moving to dr  Aavikoo and mr Day I’d like to discuss gentlemen   some of the recent developments from around the  world and particularly with your organizations   globally around vaccine passports supply  chains and health certification so   doctor Aaviksoo so firstly can you can you  briefly tell us about your about your work   in in Estonia with with Guardime around vaccine  credentials and pharmaceutical supply chains   yeah thank you jagatami's working in Estonia  and talking around to 40 different countries and   piloting it in in 10 countries so we we also  have already in one hand understanding from many   of those countries but when we started working  a year ago basically with the wgo it was not   about COVID in the first place it was really  trying to introduce the idea that distributed   stakeholders can collaborate and also in an  area as sensitive as healthcare in a manner that   they they you know build workflows which  are cross-boundary you know cross country   or even between health systems  and then yes indeed supply chains   and yet after the COVID pandemic started we kind  of focused more narrowly on how to mitigate the   the risks from this disease now i will answer in  kind of two parts so i still am a public health   person so and from the public health point of  view really the passporting use case really it   came quite late in the in the discussion so the  first discussion was what is most often called   the care continuity use case whereby you might  get your first vaccination in one location you   then would like to go to another one then there  is another healthcare professional whom you would   like to you know share your data they have some  liability risks knowing something about your past   and that use case was kind of obvious and nobody  doubted that but they're still you know you still   need to some make some precautions in terms of  security and privacy and guard time as a cool tech   which is capable of rendering all of that  and then gradually and i think over the last   four weeks a switch happened and nobody's talking  anymore about the health use cases and everybody's   talking oh i want to travel and then i give you a  little bit as a company we also internally discuss   our solution primarily is focused on the  governments to actually have effective   vaccination campaigns so that not the docent of as  the certificate but also the information they're   in so how do you know that this is authentic  vaccine in the first place that you know was   captured into that docent if we still believe that  this need will be there over the next four years   but we just heard all the politicians are  promising to europeans that by the end of july   we will have herd immunity and I absolutely agree  with Edgar so if from the public health point of   view the new each new individual infection doesn't  pose anymore that much of a public health risk   what is the added value of trying to organize  and building enormously complex system to manage   the privacy of a value proposition that has  been defined so narrowly so i will summarize   and telling that i think we should try to make  the best use of the technologies which enable   securely and privately kind of collaborate people  organizations is am i am i you know fighting for   my right to get to the pub or doctor concerts  and building the world's best security passport   from guard time no i really think that you know i  can contribute to the public health more than when   I’d like to go to pub and visit my favourite city  London but yeah i don't know where result leads   I’ve learned enormously a lot of things and  i think that we can provide enormous a lot of   value to the governments to the citizens to farmer  manufacturers in order to get better understanding   you know efficiency of those vaccines with the  use of data but yeah vaccine passports to open   up the economies i know many people hope  that will be the case maybe for this summer   next summer I’m really doubtful so thank you  Ain okay that's an interesting view so really   secure collaboration across the entire public  health ecosystem so to just turning to Anthony now   who on my screen is on mute anyway Anthony can  you just could you explain to us a little bit   about how your organization IBM have been working  with with healthpass and some of the work that   you've done on the on the continent yeah for sure  and thanks to the other colleagues for kind of   building in some of the context in the background  here i mean first things first let's understand   why are we why are we doing this first of all  because it's not that we want vaccine passports   or health passports because that's something  that's required what we're saying is that there   is a requirement for verification of health  status there is a high likelihood that that   solution should be digitized as much as possible  because that will enable things to be managed in a   streamlined remote kind of way think about having  to manage you know hundreds of thousands of paper   docents going through an airport at the moment  you've got something like 95 of the operational   staff on check-in desks for 20 of the passengers  because each of those individuals are carrying   probably five different types of docent their  health certificate their forms that they need   to complete for departure and arrival their  proof identity their proof accommodation etc   those five docents will need to be checked and  in most cases that's manual today it is entirely   unscalable to do that in that manner as we start  getting back towards even 50 of air traffic   and we haven't even got into the verification in  other customer journeys or in other workflows and   elsewhere in industry or in sport entertainment  or academia so there is a high likelihood that   a digital solution is going to be necessary  to help us manage this verification process   it's also important then to manage the issuance  of credentials and let's be clear it's not just   vaccination so there will be some in society who  will not be able to be unvaccinated there are   some in society who will choose not to become  vaccinated we should have an accessibility   opportunity for those individuals who do not  have a vaccine so we're looking at vaccines tests   and proofs of recovery as much as we're looking  at just vaccinations so let's take that off the   table at the moment this is a health this is about  health credentials it's not just about vaccines   the next part of the story is about the  integration so mr Aaviksoo also talks clearly   about the government angle to this how is this  being provided at a national level but if you're   an airline or if you're an employer or if you're  a cruise line or if you are a a sports stadium   or theatre it is entirely likely that by this  summer you will be looking at private sector and   public sector wallets being issued for multiple  jurisdictions national solutions public private   solutions some by private healthcare organizations  and how are those going to be integrated into   their digital experience or their ticketing  solution or their entry and access management   a big part of the work that we do is actually  enabling not just IBM's digital health pass but   the health pass credentials of others of other  solutions that are out there for confidentiality   i won't name the guys we're working with at the  moment because it's not been announced publicly   but we're working with most of the public  sorry the private sector wallet providers   that are scaled and scaled is a very relative term  also right if you look at a lot of the work that's   going on with airlines most of the infrastructure  around some of the other health classes are being   built while the planes in the air to use it to  use a technology metaphor we do not have for   some of those other providers infrastructure that  has been scaled to hundreds of millions of users   across multiple jurisdictions they've just about  figured out nine months ago that QR codes on an   app is a good idea now let's figure out how we  do scalable infrastructure under the surface   which is actually something that IBM knows a thing  or two about and has been doing since pre-pandemic   so the challenge here is one of digital  transformation there's a huge challenge   around policy privacy accessibility and being able  to provide also solutions for those people who are   less digitally enabled so there are going to still  be physical paper journeys that sensitivity around   the concept of id cards so this is really about  public private partnership around both policy   development and user journey development and then  integration so that the concept of board digital   boarding passes is very familiar to most you know  the level of digitization amount of smartphone   penetration in most nations not all in a large  amount of the areas where mass gathering occurs   is going to be prevalent but not all so how do we  make sure we enable as much of that as possible   while being as inclusive as possible to cover  other jurisdictions other geographies other   use cases refugees less developed nations low  bandwidth low internet penetration countries   and domains it's a lot but we can do a lot with  the early stage digitization but very interesting   perspective fantasy I’m hearing you know digital  to address the paper chase with accessibility   and integration and the importance of public  and private partnership not just government so   it's a very interesting viewpoint but I’ll turn if  i may to consider some of the some of the privacy   and trust and ethical issues that you've that  you've talked about i think there's probably   evidence throughout europe that vaccine programs  and in some cases government systems have low   public trust the particular example I’d consider  in the UK was that of a a failed centralized   contact tracing approach which probably showed  public opinion more in favour of decentralized   systems with strong privacy foundations so I’ll  turn back to dr Whitley and ask him although it's   an enormous topic dr Whitley what's your view of  the dangers of abuse of such systems for vaccine   status and the wider hearing or the sharing of  of health status in in the covert pandemic what   are your what are your what's your kind of  summary of the real dangers and risks here   so i think this is and it's following on from  Anthony's point this is where you really get into   the technical details about what data  you're sharing how it's being used etc so   somebody already asked in in the questions about  will i be able to go to restaurants without   sharing my personal personally identifiable  information well if we are talking about   the vaccine that you receive that's linked to  your personal identity because of course there's   an issue of if it were to become important  to prove that you've been vaccinated then   you haven't yet been vaccinated because you're  perhaps too young or you've got other reasons   then maybe you can use somebody else's vaccination  status it's about tying it to identity but let's   asse that you're doing that you share that with  the hospitality owner or whatever are they just   going to check yeah you've been vaccinated and  for whatever risk profile we've got it we're fine   to let you into the busy part the place where you  can or whatever or are they going to keep a record   of you entering that location with your health  data and if they're keeping that record the   monetization opportunities to analyze that we can  see that this particular pub is very popular with   people in their 60s who were vaccinated in  this location and therefore probably have got   that home address this person seems to be going  into 12 different pubs in one evening hopefully   not requiring a substantial meal in each one and  therefore perhaps we'll share that aggregated data   with a health comp insurance company who might  send suddenly spot that there may be a health risk   around alcoholism for that particular individual  so if you are just sharing a no audit trail proof   COVID's health status that's one model if you  are using this as an opportunity to collect and   what collect for audit purposes ostensibly but  then someone will say well we've got this data   can we then analyze it anonymize it aggregate  it and sell it on then you're going to get a   potentially significant backlash against initially  the presentation of the status and if the   presentation of the status becomes gets kicked  out because too many people are objecting to it   then you potentially in the extreme case  also undermined that they the vaccination   rollout or renewals or whatever it might be  so if handled badly it can cause all sorts of   unintended significant consequences so it needs  that real care about the use cases the value   proposition and also very specifically what data  you're sharing because of course under GDPR and   the UK equivalent this is health data special  category data linked to you that needs to be   treated a lot more carefully than photos  of your breakfast or whatever it might be   so thank you thank you for that because i think  that it's very interesting that there are dangers   not just to offending people citizens views of  their privacy but also to actually actual public   health if such systems are abused so I’d like to  take that question to to Ain because i guess by   reputation historian citizens have very high trust  in government digital systems and have famously a   mandatory citizen identity system which removes  some of the identity verification risks from   public and private sector what so my quit my  question dr Aaviksoo so is you know does this mean   citizens have less fear in Estonia that their data  is going to be used in ways that they wouldn't   consent what can we learn from that situation  in the global context from the Estonian example   yeah thank you indeed maybe that is the reason why  we are capable of also introducing the vaccination   certificate in in april so you know both the  government departments all the legal people   there they have the experience similar to Estonian  citizens for 17 years practicing digital services   but it has come with the experience and  part of that experience is transparency   and also with the i can i can see how a lot of  effort is put into trying to you know make this   docent as secure and privacy preserving as  possible whereas the whole use of the docent   which which in the case of Estonia in most cases  whatever digital information is made available   to to the others you as a citizen always know  who has been using your data where which means   that that as a cider criminals tell that you don't  do cyber crime in Estonia because you get caught   and so i also believe that i can see how this eu  proposal and also the wgo proposal they're kind   of converging towards the end that well we should  make this privacy preserving at the point that you   actually will only tell yes and no at the border  but also at the same time you have no way to know   who actually has process to date after that which  again i think that the risk is in one hand we get   a very limited value out of all this effort and  then on the other hand as a citizen i still may   remain suspicious about it so that one thing to  learn is that and that is also what what Guardtime   has learned not just in healthcare but in many  other domains u.s government the stony government   a few others in europe and elsewhere they are  using this information technology at scale   and I’m thankful for pointing this out that okay  now there is a use case that that needs to work   not just as a pilot but really as something that  you can build you know if your business on it   so in in in those circumstances the certain  experience but also guidance experience globally   tells that there are technologies that do scale  and part of that is that you kind of empower the   citizens as guardians of that governance so I’ll  finish somebody in germany said aha a few years   ago telling effectively every Estonian is policing  over all the others how the data is being used so   we don't need to blindly trust our data protection  authority to make sure but i as a citizen can help   anyone hold anyone accountable and that gives the  power of the citizens to actually you know trust   if they offered a digital service so thanks sign  and i think the mention of Anthony there just very   briefly turned to you Anthony in a i guess that  there's been a lot of talking about about sharing   of health data of security of privacy consent and  people on the this seminar will have noted there's   much mention of ledgers and blockchain and the  job titles and com the companies involved can you   can you just say briefly because i know you have  excellent communication skills what the role of   ledges and distributed ledger and blockchain might  be in delivering some of the underlying privacy   and consent concerns that we've noted today the  short sversion is that you're using the idea of   digital identities for issuers of credentials  for verifiers of credentials to be able to   transact or identify that a credential is current  active and accurate if you have a pdf with a QR   code that's printed a scanner is going to tell  you that the information that QR code matches   what it expects to see it's not necessarily going  to tell you that it has been that it is an active   credential that it is up to date that it has not  been revoked and so while a lot of the solutions   you're probably going to see come out first are  available for mass consumption they're oftentimes   going to be required to have a secondary form of  identity shown in addition to the piece of paper   or even if it's a digital proof with a QR code  without the decentralized identity or the platform   behind it oftentimes you're going to be asking  a citizen to show a second form of information   to validate that or in some cases a selfie or you  know show more information that they might not be   comfortable to share i don't want somebody knowing  my date of birth or my address when i go into   a pub I’m not particularly happy that i have to  write down my telephone number for contact tracing   if we can do that in an obfuscated way with a  check-in type process or a pre-approval process   that system can exist on the platform with  my identity and my wallet linked to it   such that i don't have to share more  information that's needed and the system   only looks up what is required without sharing  pii that's the critical requirement here but I’m   not sure we're going to see that out of the gate  and that's what we've got to work towards okay   thanks very much Anthony and then as we move  into the last lap of this seminar in the next   he says removing his glasses to check the time  in the last five minutes so I’d like to just   consider a point that was talked about earlier  around the role of the private sector and public   sector now i personally know several individuals  in my company's work in government who've worked   absolutely tirelessly in in public health and  even specifically in some of the vaccine programs   and clearly in public health is a central role  in enabling some of this verification and we   on the other side we see i think we see some of  the solutions represented by the companies today   and but countless other commercial initiatives  covering the air industry and testing and so on   my concern my question is really around what's  the role of public and private sector in enabling   some of the use cases that we have started to  identify today so i think in in that context   my question to maria do you feel Maarja  there's a need for strong guidelines from   the governments and the ngos that we've talked  about to guide innovation in the private sector   particularly in SMEs can you can  you can you speak to that concern yes well i think you know government  should be involved in setting guidelines   and not particularly just not  be shying away from the issue   and to protect the best interests of the citizen  and but actually i think that the point of   interest here is the need for collaboration  actually between public health and the private   sector and particularly SMEs and i think  it's an opportunity actually really to   foster new relationships between these sectors and  i think there's a bit of a tendency to shrink away   from private collaboration and public health but  there's an opportunity here to set standards for   future collaboration I’d obviously a stronger  appetite to include SMEs in this process will   lead to ongoing economic benefit and we've  seen high-level guidance from the whole   but the UK government response to this remains  to be seen so i think there's there's opportunity   here for public health to be involved in creating  actually distributed trust networks between   public health private testing and industry and  where the citizen has oversight of what data is   shared and when we're talking about a domestic  use case and that's what we've been focusing on   it's thicker and thanks very much maria and with  that in painting that picture I’ll use the last   two minutes of this event really to ask all of  the panel in turn what their what their view is   of the picture of the perfection if we're seeing  a burst of activity around the covert crisis   that's driven forward some of the digital  solutions that can positively impact   some of the citizen experiences  that Anthony talked about earlier   what is your picture of perfection in  in for the future role of technology   in public health in the covert pandemic and beyond  so I’ll address that question first of all to   Edgar because he's on the left-hand side of my  screen and i know that he has a lecture very   shortly Edgar okay so rather than just focusing on  a picture of perfection i think there's a really   interesting innovation question that's going to  come out so in the UK the NHS is the source of   truth about whether or not you've been  vaccinated it may not be the source of   antibodies or for testing but for the vaccination  it's going to be there if we are relying on that   proof vaccination as a standard activity then the  role of interoperability and standards for the   relying parties the bars the restaurants theaters  or whatever is going to be incredibly important   because you don't want to have to enroll with  seven different apps from seven different SMEs   for seven different locations the tension then  of course becomes if any one app is as good   as any of the others in terms of conveying the  information are we just going to get a homogenized   service where there is no real competition  there's no real opportunity for companies to   differentiate themselves or are we going to get  a situation where one app provider perhaps with   a slightly slicker user experience or probably  a better advertising campaign or a trusted brand   dominates the market okay doing something fairly  commodity in terms of providing that status   but if all this talk about innovation  and SMEs and rebuilding the economy   perhaps goes a little bit to waste because of  the nature of that standardized requirement for   the technical exchange of data so that's just my  kind of random academic reaction to this thank you   intriguing Edgar the perhaps an opportunity for  big tech rather than SMEs I’m turning to you who   you're next to the left on my screen what what's  your views of of how this crisis might deliver   some positive results about the tragedy for a  picture of perfection for digital public health   most certainly there will be lessons  learned both in the positive from the   positive outcomes as well as negative ones so i  believe context racing gaps where is one example   everybody had very great hopes and then they  built very secure systems and then the public   health benefit of those are you know very  limited at the same time i think at least in   Estonia and also there were some international  collaborations that that we participated   the level of collaboration between the tech  industry and the public health officials and   then others i think that was unprecedented  so that i i do think that the tech companies have learned a lot during this crisis and the  solutions that will come out of this will be   you know more considerate of all the complexity  in health care sometimes i think tech companies   take it you know too easy and sometimes also  they have smaller and big fails and on the   practical terms i believe that using your health  data much more freely will be one of the outcomes   what exactly is the feature and the tool i think  we heard also from Anthony we might not know   exactly how it will materialize but there will be  certainly more freedom for people to use the data   in a secure manner so that they can actually  trust that the privacy will not be compromised   thank you Ain and I’ll quickly pass on to Anthony  and ask him to stick to about a minute or so   you're forever asking me to be brief and  i appreciate it there's two things for me   thing one is that we actually level up the  the infrastructure for data sharing and   verification between member states there are  a number of protocols out there trust over ip   a number of different self-sovereign identity w3c  verifiable credential standards that have been   worked on for many years prior to the pandemic  let's let's level up that capability around   self-sovereign identity and credentials management  at a national level thing two and i think it's   building what i said let's try and see if we can  build on that trust layer or that digital layer   to enable open health to transform the experience  for citizens in the same way as open banking did   for financial literacy so we're just starting to  realize that it's a good thing for governments to   play back our own health data to citizens right  i can't remember half of the interactions I’ve   had with healthcare providers over the years  and I’ve had many different surgeries and   scrapes and scratches how can we start providing  more open healthcare data to citizens in a privacy   preserving way such that they can do more with  that for their own benefit i think that's a knock   on future implication of what we're uncovering  in these last 12 months thanks Anthony open   health like open bank banking it's quite a vision  that leaves you with the last word Maarja-Liis   no pressure then and it really just reflected  what the other panelists have said i think   covert has rapidly accelerated the adoption  of new technologies by large-scale health   organizations such as the NHS which has been  traditionally quite slow to adopt any innovation   and i think we just need to ensure that this isn't  limited to the basics so of course things like the   rapid adoption of video consultations are great  but there's an opportunity here to deploy more   innovative and impactful technologies to  the likes of healthcare data management   in order to bring healthcare in line with other  industries and into the 21st century essentially   and i think this will ultimately improve things  for healthcare professionals and public health   but most importantly the individual and it's up  to up to government and public health to grasp   the opportunity to innovate with industry and set  the standard for easy secure citizen-led sharing   and verification of health status even beyond  covert and that's certainly what we're hoping   for and moving towards that SICCAR thank you  very much Maarja so with that i believe that we   are four minutes over and i think in the coming  months we're going to see many approaches and   solutions and hopefully standards emerging i want  to give my heartfelt thanks to the panel today   i think we've found some really interesting things  to to talk about and that we could have gone on   for much longer and perhaps we will have a we will  bring this group back together a little bit later   as we see some some developments in the areas that  we we've discussed so thanks to the panel thanks   to the audience and I’ll let you get on with  the rest of your day many thanks and goodbye

2021-03-31

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