Blockchain-based Platform for Secure Sharing and Validation of Vaccination Certificates

Abubakar, Mwrwan; McCarron, P�draig; Jaroucheh, Zakwan; Al Dubai, Ahmed; Buchanan, Bill

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has recently emerged as a worldwide health emergency that necessitates coordinated international measures. To contain the virus's spread, governments and health organisations raced to develop vaccines that would lower Covid-19 morbidity, relieve pressure on healthcare systems, and allow economies to open. Following the COVID-19 vaccine, the vaccination certificate has been adopted to help the authorities formulate policies by controlling cross-border travelling. To address serious privacy concerns and eliminate the need for third parties to retain the trust and govern user data, in this paper, we leverage blockchain technologies in developing a secure and verifiable vaccination certificate. Our approach has the advantage of utilising a hybrid approach that implements different advanced technologies, such as the self-sovereignty concept, smart contracts and interPlanetary File System (IPFS). We rely on verifiable credentials paired with smart contracts to make decisions about who can access the system and provide on-chain verification and validation of the user and issuer DIDs. The approach was further analysed, with a focus on performance and security. Our analysis shows that our solution satisfies the security requirements for immunisation certificates.

Citation

Abubakar, M., McCarron, P., Jaroucheh, Z., Al Dubai, A., & Buchanan, B. (2022). Blockchain-based Platform for Secure Sharing and Validation of Vaccination Certificates. In 2021 14th International Conference on Security of Information and Networks (SIN). https://doi.org/10.1109/SIN54109.2021.9699221

• Conference Name: 2021 14th International Conference on Security of Information and Networks (SIN)
• Conference Location: Edinburgh
• Start Date: Dec 15, 2021
• End Date: Dec 17, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Feb 10, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: May 12, 2022
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Book Title: 2021 14th International Conference on Security of Information and Networks (SIN)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/SIN54109.2021.9699221
• Keywords: COVID-19, Blockchain technology, smart contract, SSI, IPFS
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2871541