Counterfeit-Proofing Health Certificates: Which Technologies Are Effective?
The raging Covid-19 pandemic has upended life as we know it and people are feeling the impact of its ever-lengthening shadow.
What started off as an epidemic in a single region of China soon became a rampaging fire that singed the entire world.
With such epic tragedies, many unscrupulous elements have not shied away from taking advantage of profiteering from such situations. Others have resorted to subterfuge to avoid having to furnish health certificates to prove that they are COVID-19 free or have been vaccinated against it.
The menace of fake Covid test or vaccine certificates
There have been some reports of some labs in India having been shut down by the government on the suspicion of supplying fake Covid 19 negative reports. There are other reports of forged documents being used to deal with travel restriction and avoid having to undergo quarantining.
The global aviation industry in particular is apprehensive that travellers will increasingly resort to using fake Covid-19 negative results that are required for domestic and international travel.
People can easily obtain such certificates from the dark net. As a matter of fact, a number of arrests have been made for furnishing counterfeit Covid-19 test documents across France, Brazil, the U.K. and other places.
In the wake of an acceleration on the vaccination programme worldwide, the new worry is that people will start obtaining and using fake vaccination documents as well.
Cyber security researchers have found out that counterfeit Covid-19 test results and forged vaccine certificates can be ordered on the dark web, as well as several hacking forums.
One just needs to pay the meager $25 to $250 in order to secure documents needed to travel abroad for business or to take up new jobs.
The problem with such fake Covid tests or vaccine certificates is that they will undermine the global fightback against the pandemic and substantially delay a return to normalcy.
The people using such certificates may not be your typical criminals and may be motivated by practical consideration of wanting to travel and work.
It is imperative that people be made aware of the great peril they put themselves and indeed the whole world by such actions and get them to stop it. At the same time, every effort should be made to go after these criminals and to thwart counterfeiting.
What technologies are effective against document counterfeiting?
The proliferation of fake certificates and counterfeit test results threatens to become a raging global phenomenon as desperate travellers try to circumvent restrictions put in place for their own safety.
People seek to do that to be able to cross borders, gain access to certain establishments, places of tourist interest and visit business partners or relatives.
Among the leading technologies in the fight against fake Covid test results reports and fake vaccination certificates are health passports (whether digital or paper-based).
Other companies are using counterfeit-proof verification processes using Blockchain technology. These technologies deter and detect fraud and other types of illegal activity with the help of AI and blockchain technology.
Similar to checks and banknotes, health certificates can also be incorporated with multi-level security features whether overt, covert, or forensic. This includes the use of security inks, taggants, security graphics, or holograms.
One solution offered by a HK-based company called HealthMatriX, comprises a safe and secure vaccine management and testing/verification platform for COVID-19 and other communicable diseases.
Their platform MatriX-iPass works as an end-to-end solution that does everything from managing test/vaccination registration and issuing health passports to continually updating health status and validating the health passports’ very own multi-level security features.
What makes it unique is the fact that it offers both physical as well as digital solutions that derive their efficacy from the many years of experience that company has in IDs, government documents and printing of high security banknotes.
The MatriX-iPass platform has been successfully implemented by one of the Philippines’ largest COVID-testing companies, LABx Corp, at a premier tourist destination. They needed an extremely secure technology to test and validate their certificates, given the scale at which fake certificates were being furnished to facilitate people travelling across borders.
The paper health visa or health passport they issue uses the same security technologies that go into the printing of banknotes. At the same time, the digital security used is the same used in money transfer in order to store, transfer and validate people’s confidential health data, making the company GDPR compliant.