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Affinidi, a Singapore-based company founded by investment firm Temasek, and The Commons Project Foundation today announced a new partnership that will leverage Affinidi’s leading digital credential verification solution to enable the safe reopening of borders around the world as international travel resumes. As the first milestone of this global partnership, travelers arriving at Singapore’s Changi Airport with the CommonPass digital health pass can now digitally verify their health status with Singapore Immigration and streamline border entry using the technology.

Affinidi’s digital credential verification solution will be accessible to members of the CommonTrust Network, an inclusive global network launched by The Commons Project Foundation and the World Economic Forum (WEF) to ensure that verifiable lab results and vaccination records from trusted sources are presented to authorities in a privacy-preserving manner. Relevant stakeholders can utilize digital credentials technology provided by Affinidi for cross-border verification of health documents such as vaccination status and COVID-19 test results, which is key to restarting international travel.

Built on the CommonTrust Network, the CommonPass platform lets travelers digitally collect their lab results and vaccination records from health data sources in the CommonTrust Network and demonstrate that those records meet the health screening requirements of their international destinations. CommonPass is rapidly being adopted by governments and digital verification organizations worldwide, and leading global airlines, including ANA, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, JetBlue, Lufthansa and United Airlines.

Glenn Gore, CEO of Affinidi, said: “Verifying health credentials is becoming more complex and critical to countries opening up their borders, and governments and travelers alike need advanced and secure solutions to tackle these challenges. Through working with partners like The Commons Project Foundation, we look forward to building a global ecosystem that provides a simpler traveler experience by leveraging our open and interoperable digital credential verification solution and contributing to greater confidence in international travel again.”

“CommonPass and the CommonTrust Network provide passengers, airlines, and governments with a trusted system to digitally verify that a traveler meets entry requirements upon arrival,” said Paul Meyer, CEO, The Commons Project Foundation. “Our registry of health data sources — information from labs, pharmacies, hospitals, and health departments — is essential to giving the public the confidence to once again travel, attend events and enjoy all the activities they did prior to COVID-19. Working together, Affinidi and the CommonTrust Network will deploy the digital health infrastructure to streamline and speed up the opening of borders.

Under the partnership, travelers on a test flight on Japan Airlines from Japan to Singapore on 5 April were able to use CommonPass to access and present their health records to immigration officers to validate their COVID-19 status using Affinidi’s digital credentials verification solution.

Affinidi’s digital verification technology can verify credentials based on multiple international standards, thereby enabling airlines and immigration authorities to work with health documentation and QR codes issued by institutions and other bodies in different countries. This process will expedite check-in processing at the airlines and immigration checkpoints at both departure and arrival. At border checkpoints, travelers would simply present their health documents to be scanned by airline staff and immigration officers, which will authenticate the credentials using Affinidi’s technology, and inform them if the traveler has met the COVID-19 requirements in the destination country before boarding the flight.

Since December 2020, Affinidi has been running pilot programs to trial its digital health verification solution with multiple airlines, including Singapore Airlines (SIA) and EVA Air, in preparation for the reopening of international borders.