ICC AOKpass Global Partnership Champions Strict Privacy Standards for COVID-19 Compliance in the Public Interest
21 Mai 2020 - 12:20PM
Business Wire
Leading up to GDPR Day on 25 May, which celebrates the landmark
data privacy protection laws in the European Union, the
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and International
SOS are now joined by SGS, the world’s leading inspection,
verification, testing and certification company, to ensure that
strict privacy standards continue to protect personal health data
in a post-COVID-19 world. The partners are leading a growing
international coalition using ICC AOKpass, a system enabling the
trusted recognition of individuals’ COVID-19 compliance status
while maintaining the highest levels of privacy preservation over
user data.
Public authorities and private sector businesses seeking to
drive COVID-19 recovery efforts are now balancing data privacy
protections against the public health interest. In this context,
solutions have been proposed that rely on the centralised
disclosure and recording of private health data to support
coordinated COVID-19 return-to-work strategies. However, such
centralised proposals are already facing strong opposition in
jurisdictions with regulatory privacy protections.
“Data privacy laws in most jurisdictions, such as the EU’s very
strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), will severely
restrict or prevent the use of centralised solutions for COVID-19
compliance. Since ICC AOKpass is privacy-preserving and
decentralised by design, it can already be deployed globally
without issue.” said Arnaud Vaissié, Co-Founder and CEO of
International SOS.
Development of ICC AOKpass balances the need for COVID-19
recovery efforts to be supported by accurate and dynamic
information relating to the compliance status of individual
citizens, with individual rights to privacy enshrined in law around
the world.
“Recovery efforts are vital and urgent, but should not be used
as a pretext to erode individual rights to privacy. Using ICC
AOKpass means that neither ever needs to be compromised -
individuals can verify their compliance status to authorities while
maintaining strict privacy and control over their personal data at
all times.” said Chester Drum, Co-Founder of AOKpass.
The addition of SGS, with more than 94,000 employees in a global
network of more than 2,600 offices and laboratories around the
world, confirms that ICC AOKpass is the leading privacy-focused
solution available. Combining its own extensive global networks
with those of ICC and International SOS, SGS will actively drive
adoption of ICC AOKpass as a common global standard.
“SGS’s existing world-renowned leadership in the development of
accepted best-practice standards and certifications will be
combined with ICC and International SOS efforts directed at
establishing international consensus on a “COVID-19 compliance
status”. With state-of-the-art privacy-preserving technology at the
core of our business, we endorse ICC AOKpass as a strong standard
that can be truly global and can be recognized across geographies
to facilitate the flow of goods and people” said Frankie Ng, CEO of
SGS.
As different jurisdictions continue to debate what defines
“COVID-19 compliance status” and the underlying health data needed
for verification, the ICC AOKpass is currently the only technical
and standards-based solution with such wide-ranging support across
industries and jurisdictions. Bringing together key multilateral
partners with key industry players, AOKpass provides an immediate
technical solution that can continue adapting to regulatory
frameworks, medical science and international best practice as they
evolve.
“Intense debate is likely to continue around what health data is
needed and how it should be handled for the purposes of COVID-19
recovery. Notwithstanding this debate, the global community can
already agree that individuals will need to use and verify their
private health data in a much more regular and transactional way in
the post-COVID-19 world. That is why ICC AOKpass is so urgently
needed, as the only technical standard that can facilitate this
immediately and apply across all countries and industries while
preserving strict individual privacy.” said John W.H. Denton AO,
Secretary General of ICC.
For more information on ICC AOKpass, see www.AOKpass.com
Register your interest for an ICC AOKpass pilot:
https://www.aokpass.com/en/pilot/
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200521005321/en/
Darren Toh, ICC AOKpass darren@aokpass.com Suzanne Withers,
International SOS suzanne.withers@internationalsos.com