Using Kiosks To Read & Process Vaccine Cards

By | September 3, 2021
Vaccine Passport Kiosk

Vaccine Passport Kiosk News August 2021

Very instructive podcast by Dave Haynes of Sixteen:Nine on Vaccine Passport Kiosks

In Brief

  • It’s a good exposition of process, or at least one or two versions of process.
  • Dave Haynes always does a really good job. We most strongly recommend following him.
  • The fellow is Chief of Security so he goes a bit overboard on authentication and verification
  • Worth remembering the current model is for someone to hold out a piece of paper or mobile phone and “show it” to some overworked, underpaid, paranoid restaurant temporary employee. Counterfeit cash at retail gets a closer inspection than that.
  • He notes the inevitable complexity of super authentication and “fakers”.  What percentage of fakers might there be we wonder. There is always a certain percentage.  Most people are honest so most credentials shown will be fine.
  • He wasn’t aware of any, though we checked with Pyramid out of Germany (with US office FYI) and they have them.
  • He was pretty complimentary regarding Canadiens (practicing our French) though he didn’t mention their hockey teams…

Onto the podcast

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT

There’s been a lot of talk about vaccine passports as the numbers of fully vaccinated people have risen in many to most first world countries, and venues from restaurants to giant sports stadiums have started talking about requiring proof of being jabbed as a requirement of admission.

But how is that done efficiently and securely? And how are fraudulent papers identified and rejected?

One of the ways to process people quickly and accurately is using readers and scanners, handheld or as  self-service kiosks. The idea is that you’d have a government-issued vaccine passport that has validated vaccine records, plus some sort of image database that confirms you are who you say you are. You walk up to a scanner, it does its thing, and you’re in … or you’re rejected.

The hardware side of this, for kiosk and touchscreen manufacturers, is probably not all that complicated. But the back-end software and database side is hugely complicated.

I had a great discussion with Tony Anscombe, the Chief Security Evangelist for the tech firm ESET. We get into the opportunities and challenges facing any AV/IT company looking at these passport kiosks as an emerging business.

Full transcript follows — we suggest reading it at Vaccine Passport Kiosks

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Author: Staff Writer

Craig Keefner -- With over 40 years in the industry and technology, Craig is widely considered to be an expert in the field. Major early career kiosk projects include Verizon Bill Pay kiosk and hundreds of others. Craig helped start kioskmarketplace and formed the KMA. Note the point of view here is not necessarily the stance of the Kiosk Association or kma.global