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The Covid-19 pandemic has led to several innovations in technology in a bid to curb the spread of the deadly virus. Social distancing and contact tracing are the highlights of these efforts.
One such step has been taken by Jeju Island in South Korea. The hugely popular tourist destination has tied up with ICONLOOP’s MyID to use advanced Blockchain technology for Covid-19 contact tracing. The collaboration between Jeju Self-Governing Province and ICONLOOP is a unique step to keep the tourist industry moving while having safeguards in place to keep Covid-19 at bay.
The development was announced in a tweet by ICONLOOP.
Jeju Island is a self-governing province in South Korea where the natives are at the helm of the administration instead of politicians from the mainland. The Island receives approximately 15 million visitors from around the globe every year and hence is susceptible to the spread of the virus.
That Jeju Island has chosen technology to fight the menace while still welcoming visitors. It is already a science hub and in 2005, a Science Park was inaugurated which is a complex for companies working on technological innovations. About 117 IT and biotech companies function from the location now.
ICONLOOP is a leading technology company in South Korea using Blockchain expertise to create real-world applications and solutions for the government, banking, healthcare sectors, and more. The company has received approval from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea for its Decentralized Identity (DID) authentication service.
The working of MyID is quite simple. Visitors to Jeju Island have to download the Zzeung mobile app through a Korean telecom service for identity verification. This is confirmed via a public Blockchain network to rule out any forgery. Fingerprint authentication or PIN code is separately verified through another public Blockchain network. Both these validations are stored in the visitor’s mobile device.
At the hotel where the visitors check-in using QR codes, the already verified credentials are transmitted to a secured private Blockchain network. If any Covid-19 case is discovered, contact tracing will be immediately initiated by the Jeju’s crisis response team through a quick epidemiological investigation.
Elaborating further, Tae-bong Lim, Health and Welfare Director of Jeju Self-Governing Province said,
