Showcasing the STA Cinderella Pass
The lockdowns and travel restrictions required to control the spread of COVID-19 have had a huge impact on the hospitality and entertainment sectors. As the pandemic has progressed it has become very apparent that these industries are in need of solutions to help them safely re-open as quickly as they can when the time comes.
In October 2020, a team within the Scottish Tech Army began working on 'The Cinderella Pass', the concept being to enable individuals to prove their negative COVID-19 status via verifiable credentials integrated into a digital wallet on their mobile phone. Through the sharing of this information with another application developed specifically for venues, the locations would instantly receive a trusted verification of the individuals' credentials.
This approach gained early support from representatives of the entertainment sector, who continue to issue dire warnings of future viability post the COVID-19 pandemic, with numerous large-scale events now likely to be cancelled for a second year running.
A group of STA volunteers and partners (JLINC Labs, Waracle and W2 Global) have built a working, standards-based prototype that shows how a venue could set conditions under which a person might enter, and then check each individual as they approach. This enables those that meet the necessary policy threshold to enter, and those that do not to be politely rejected.
The initial prototype built verified credentials illustrating COVID-19 test results. As the world progressed through the pandemic and the focus moved from pure testing to include vaccinations, the team has built additional credentials showing vaccination scenarios, and developed these to demonstrate how multiple proven attributes can be combined into a single derived credential. This combines multiple proof points and different sources into one presentation layer, for example a vaccination and a recent test.
The solution is a real enabler for both citizens and the hospitality and entertainment sectors while also adhering to privacy requirements. It is built on the emerging WC3 global standards for decentralised identity and verified credentials. Should funding and access to further data sources emerge, the STA Cinderella Pass architecture can evolve further and inter-operate with other wallet/ credential providers to enable a bottom-up approach to the problem of enabling people to prove things digitally - an opportunity that extends well beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.