The United Kingdom’s Open University has developed a COVID-19 proof-of-immunity app that combines blockchain with a privacy-preserving data solution from web inventor Tim Berners-Lee. The prototype app, undergoing testing as of April 29, would support the proof and verification of tamper-resistant test results for COVID-19 antigen tests and vaccination coverage. The solution could ostensibly be used to provide frontline workers, healthcare professionals and the wider public with reliable immunity certificates that would be stored on a distributed, immutable and trusted blockchain-based registry. Alongside consortium blockchain technology, the app uses solid “pods” — an acronym for the personal online data stores …

The headlines are scary. Millions of infections — over 170,000 deaths. Nothing will ever replace the lives lost or bring back pre-COVID-19 “normal” again. While our hearts and deepest sympathies go out to everyone whose life has changed due to this pandemic, there are long-term implications that, for those of us in the business of privacy, are just as scary as the pandemic itself. Apple and Google are collaborating on contact tracing solutions, and governments are tracking the movement and even biometrics of citizens through their personal devices. Once the threat of COVID-19 is dealt with via social distancing, medical …

Crypto- and blockchain-focused companies around the world have been making efforts to support people amid the coronavirus pandemic, with some of them donating funds to nonprofits and providing supplies to hospitals. Israeli blockchain startup Orbs came up with an idea to encourage people to self-quarantine by using a newly launched app. The app, which is dubbed "Stay at Home Challenge," is designed to assure that the user does not leave the nearby radius once they enter their location in the app. The app tracks users' self-quarantine time and notifies them when they abandon the designated home area, according to an …

Amid the global pandemic crisis, the importance of ensuring trusted information is getting more crucial as fake coronavirus news poses a direct threat to life and health of people worldwide. While some global jurisdictions are imposing fines and imprisonment for spreading false coronavirus information, a major news agency in Italy is hoping to stop fake news by implementing blockchain technology. All the news that’s fit to hash ANSA, Italy’s main news agency and an international publication owned by 24 national newspapers, has launched a news tracking system based on blockchain to bring more trust between the company and its readers. …

With pundits like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey predicting that Africa “will define” the future of Bitcoin (BTC), cryptocurrency and blockchain technology continue to attract interest from both public and private establishments across the continent. Many of these adoption cases have been moving beyond finance, developing solutions targeted at issues like unemployment, identity management, health care and supply chain, among others. Amid the growing enthusiasm for crypto and blockchain technology in Africa, industry stakeholders interviewed by Cointelegraph identify a lack of education as one of the major hurdles standing in the way of more broad-based utilization of the technology. The absence …

Experts suggest that blockchain technology could have been a better solution for handling coronavirus-related data in Russia. Moscow’s COVID-19 App is pulled from Google Play On March 25, an app called “Social monitoring” appeared in Google Play store. According to the app’s description, it was designed for social monitoring as well as for providing access to emergency services. Users soon noticed that the app required many sensitive permissions, including geolocation, bluetooth pairing, biometric data, and calls. Notably, the data was also being openly transmitted without encryption. The backlash against the app led to a 1-star rating on Google Play by …

Although the Wild West of crypto historically has involved scams, hype and price gaming, those descriptors are now tacked onto another industry — the N95 face mask market. “Scrutiny surrounding these deals is high because of ongoing scams and claims of price-gouging, both of which are triggering emotionally charged reactions and fear of making deals,” Forbes contributor David DiSalvo wrote in a March 30 article on the coronavirus pandemic-induced N95 face mask mania. Out of context, however, DiSalvo’s quote very much describes the crypto space at times. The face mask market currently resembles horse-trading shenanigans DiSalvo described a day that …

The operators of Ryuk ransomware continue to target hospitals, despite the intense pressures they are already facing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. On March 27, ‘PeterM’ of British IT security firm Sophos, tweeted that a United States-based healthcare provider had been targeted by Ryuk’s ransomware. PeterM stated that the cyber offensive “looks like a typical Ryuk attack,” posting: “I can confirm that #Ryuk ransomware are still targeting hospitals despite the global pandemic. I'm looking at a US health care provider at the moment who were targeted overnight. Any HC providers reading this, if you have a TrickBot infection …

I chose artificial intelligence as my next topic, as it can be considered as one of the most known technologies, and people imagine it when they talk about the future. But the right question would be: What is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is not something that just happened in 2015 and 2016. It’s been around for a hundred years as an idea, but as a science, we started seeing developments from the 1950s. So, this is quite an old tech topic already, but because of the kinds of technology that we have access to today — specifically, processing performance and …

As the number of global coronavirus cases grows each day, online scammers are turning to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) to steal money under the cover of the global pandemic. According to cybersecurity firm Sophos, some online perpetrators are now impersonating the World Health Organization (WHO) in an attempt to steal cryptocurrency donations to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Scammers look to profit from the recently launched COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund Chester Wisniewski, a cybersecurity expert at Sophos, reported on WHO impersonators in a March 19 tweet, posting email screenshots from scammers. According to Wisniewski, the fraudsters are trying to mislead people …

The Netherlands-based Public Health Blockchain Consortium (PHBC) has announced the release of a blockchain-based system designed to track the movement of individuals not infected with high-risk viruses. The impetus behind the development is to help healthy people avoid potentially life-threatening diseases. The PHBC announced the release on March 19, detailing that the blockchain-based platform will monitor systematic, continual and anonymous verification of communities and workplaces, which are not afflicted by dangerous viruses, including the Coronavirus. Recording virus data on blockchain “The blockchain stores a workplace's or community's protection certificate from security organizations or government bodies to assure that all persons …

ConsenSys, the Ethereum-focused company founded by Joseph Lubin, announced on Feb. 25 that it will spin off its health division. The new ConsenSys Health company will develop blockchain use cases to tackle issues in the U.S. healthcare industry. The announcement is part of ConsenSys’ strategy shift of favoring products such as Codefi and Infura, which led the company to spin out several internal projects into independent entities. ConsenSys Health focuses on applying blockchain to the health industry, citing issues such as rising costs and access to care as some of the areas where blockchain can contribute. Co-founder of Ethereum (ETH) …