[CFRG] Question over COVID-19 'passport' standardization?

Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org> Fri, 30 July 2021 17:47 UTC

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From: Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org>
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2021 19:47:13 +0200
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Subject: [CFRG] Question over COVID-19 'passport' standardization?
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Everyone,

While the research community and industry was very quick to work on
privacy-enhanced contact tracing, I've seen very few people taking the much
more pressing issue of COVID-19 passports.

I've earlier seen some very badly done academic work using W3C "Verified
Credentials" and W3C Decentralized Identifier (DID) standards [1]. However,
while a bunch of sketchy blockchain technology has not been adopted (so
far, although I believe IATA and WHO are still being heavily lobbied in
this direction), there has been the release of the EU "Green" Digital
Credentials that actually uses digital signatures.

However, there's a number of problems:

* No revocation in case of compromise
* Privacy issues, i.e. leaking metadata
* No key management (booster shots might require)
* No use of standards for cross-app interoperability

Furthermore, there appears to be differences between countries, and some
countries do not use cryptography at all (the US). Therefore, as an
American in France who flew home ASAP to get vaccinated in the US, as a
consequence of this lack of interoperability I can't travel on trains or
eat at restaurants easily, despite being vaccinated. I imagine this will
become a larger problem.

I have a report I'm willing to share, but I'd first like to know if there's
any interest in standardization on this front at the IETF despite this
topic being, I suspect, a bit of  astretch of our remit. However, we live
in interesting times.

I don't think the W3C (or the ITU, etc.) has the security expertise, and
while the crypto and security/privacy here is pretty simple, I think it
should happen somewhere. So I thought polling it by CFRG IRTF would be a
good idea to see what would happen, as the CFRG has probably the largest
security/privacy expertise in the wider IETF circles.

          yours,
             harry

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.00136