Guardtime will lead the first stage of the implementation with a 12-week pilot of a digital International Certificate of Vaccination "yellow card", validating the ability of the infrastructure to scale to billions of vaccination recipients, across multiple pathfinder countries, including Estonia.

The platform will be based on KSI Blockchain, an EU-EIDAS certified trust service and X-ROAD, Estonia's data sharing platform, and will test the following functions:

Proof of vaccination: similar to the International Certificate of Vaccination or “yellow card”, a secure COVID-19 vaccination certificate will play a critical role as economies reopen and international travel resumes.
Priority management eligibility: Establish a governance mechanism for prioritized populations. It will be important for member states to assure a fair and accountable process in this context.
Monitor uptake among target population: subnational, national, and global monitoring of vaccine uptake will be essential to manage the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination and reduce COVID-19 transmission.

Guardtime has a strong track record in building certification solutions for governments. SICPA, a global leader in government security solutions, and Guardtime have built CERTUS ™  a certification solution for COVID-19 testing, deployed in production around the world including international sports leagues, sports teams, testing consortia and travel authorities to validate  certification  results of COVID-19. The product is decentralized (i.e. without the need for a centralized authority), works online and offline with a single click for verification and leverages KSI Blockchain for immutability, providing independent proof of the correctness of certificates.

Ain Aaviksoo, Chief Medical Officer, Guardtime Health:
“We are very proud to be able to support the WHO in their quest for a scalable global digital infrastructure for vaccination certification . This represents a significant opportunity to show how Guardtime's KSI Blockchain technology can scale to billions of people around the world.. What we offer to the WHO and participating member states is speed: The product is built and proven in production and the infrastructure for the global infrastructure can be deployed in a matter of weeks.”

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO
"The memorandum we signed today establishes a valuable cooperation framework for digital health and innovation. We are excited to work with Estonia and other stakeholders to develop digital tools that can help to deliver high-quality, people-centered, and evidence-informed care."

Jüri Ratas, Prime Minister of Estonia:
“The pandemic has shown the world that in crisis we need to have global anchor of trust like WHO has been playing. A safe and trustworthy place where member states can seek guidance if needed. World Health Organization can play a huge role in the global digital health governance. Our pilot project presents an extraordinary opportunity for the Estonian community to help the world in the fight against COVID-19 and to make our experience of building digital services global." 
Pictures: Stenbock House, Tallinn, Estonia