Need proof of your COVID-19 vaccination? A Denver company is offering an app for that – The Denver Post

A Denver-based company that works with some of the countrys largest businesses to protect the identity of users is offering a new service for free that will allow people to show they have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Ping Identity co-founder and CEO Andre Durand said the service, which will be offered through the recently acquired business ShoCard, will allow people to share digital proof of their vaccination with employers, restaurants and other venues.

The company rolled out the Project COVID Freedom website Wednesday to give businesses, organizations, health care providers, government agencies and others a chance to participate in what Durand called an early preview of the technology. Individuals can get on a waiting list.

Time will tell whether or not this is a technology thats needed, Durand said. At the end of the day its about getting businesses and people back to their normal routines as fast as we can.

Vaccine providers, including companies and health care providers, can issue a digital card that the person who has been vaccinated can download on the ShoCard app, like a digital wallet people use for tickets and other items on their phones. They can share the information using a QR code on the phone.

Once the credential gets issued to your phone, theres no other copy of it anywhere. The vaccinators will push some encrypted information to the phone. To the end user, it looks like a proof of vaccine, Durand said. The only way in which that information can be used, even by the individual, is by using facial recognition or their fingerprint.

Durand said he has talked to several people in Colorado and some health care providers to get a sense of how much interest there might be in the technology.

A return to normal requires secure and trusted ways to share and verify vaccination status, Gautam M Shah, vice president of platform and marketplace at Change Healthcare, a health care technology company, said in a statement. Supporting Project COVID Freedom is a natural extension of Change Healthcare and Ping Identitys common goal to use secure, highly accurate identity to enable trusted health care interactions for patients, health care providers and payers alike.

Durand said he believes a handful of other companies are looking at offering a similar service. Ping Identity took a detour from its original plans for ShoCard, which it acquired about a year ago, when the pandemic hit to offer the vaccination program. The company provides a platform to securely share personal information to establish a persons identity.

This is just technology to deal with something that no one asked for. I certainly wouldnt be one to say someone has to get vaccinated, Durand said. But we do live in a society in which transmittable diseases is now a thing.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said that employers can make vaccination for COVID-19 mandatory, with limited exceptions based on sincerely-held religious beliefs or to accommodate a health concern, say an allergy to what is in the vaccine.

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Need proof of your COVID-19 vaccination? A Denver company is offering an app for that - The Denver Post