NAS, World Economic Forum Partner To Share Traveler Vaccine Records
Agreement will integrate NAS's KuwaitMosafer platform with the Forum's Common Trust Network
National Aviation Services (NAS), the leading airport services company in emerging markets, has partnered with the World Economic Forum to enhance safe air travel by using its KuwaitMosafer platform to share Kuwait’s vaccine records with countries and airlines across the globe.
The partnership will facilitate safer international air travel by using KuwaitMosafer to make vaccine certificates issued by the Kuwait Ministry of Health instantly accessible to airlines, airport authorities and governments via the Forum’s Common Trust Network. The Common Trust Network, launched by the Forum and the Commons Project Foundation, enables the safe, secure sharing of verifiable lab results and vaccination records to advance cross-border travel and commerce.
Hassan El-Houry, Group CEO of NAS, said, “Countries are keen to collaborate with us to revive passenger travel generally and to make it possible for high-spending Kuwaitis to safely resume business and leisure travel in greater numbers. Through platforms like KuwaitMosafer, we are focused on safer and simpler digital solutions that can aid both local and global recovery of travel.”
With multiple, interlinked technology solutions, Kuwait is considered a global leader in digital health tools that can be deployed at the airport.
The Common Trust Network’s partnership with KuwaitMosafer was fueled by Kuwait’s efforts to restart global travel. Those efforts were highlighted in an article published by the Forum on its website. The article describes digital tools that NAS has developed to restore confidence and accelerate recovery in the air travel industry.
“With the Covid-19 vaccine certificate, passengers can travel reassured with complete data confidentiality and the ability to share their personal records as and where required,” El-Houry said.
The Common Trust Network is enabled by a global registry of trusted laboratory and vaccination data sources, standard formats for lab results and vaccination records, and standard tools to make those results and records digitally accessible.
The Commons Project also introduced CommonPass, a globally interoperable app that allows travelers to document their COVID-19 status digitally for cross-border travel and share via a QR code. Common Pass is already deployed by Lufthansa on all flights from Germany to the U.S. and by Jetblueon flights to Aruba. Japan’s Nippon Airways (ANA) and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific are also currently piloting this technology.
As leading player in the aviation industry, NAS is a key participant at regional and global discussions including the Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos each year. NAS recently signed up to the Good Health Pass Collaborative, a cross-sector initiative to develop a blueprint for privacy-protected, user-controlled, globally interoperable, and universally accepted digital health pass systems. It is also in discussions with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to maximize integration and facilitate travel with the IATA Travel Pass that will allow storage and management of certifications for COVID-19 tests or vaccines.
NAS introduced the Medical Utility Network Accreditor (MUNA), a patented blockchain technology that connects PCR testing labs in different countries and cities together to verify and authenticate certificates for cross-border travel. KuwaitMosafer and BelSalamah, another online platform developed by NAS for safe passage of travelers from high-risk countries to Kuwait, are both linked to the MUNA network. This makes it possible to share authenticated PCR test results generated from audited labs in over 40 cities.
El-Houry said: “The MUNA data in Kuwait shows promising results. All travelers arriving to Kuwait from high-risk countries are registered on KuwaitMosafer or BelSalamah and must get their PCR tests conducted at MUNA-authorized labs wherever available. We discovered that the number of positive cases entering the country were three times higher before MUNA was introduced. This suggests a significant reduction in infected cases entering the country with forged certificates or fake results.”
