Steven ZeniosThe blockchain technology aims to speed up the system and increase protection of the digital visa application process that is available to five million visitors from 20 countries.
The implementation is a joint effort from Australian travel company ShareRing and Gateway Services, an entity that owns the license to process eVOA for Thailand. The announcement revealed that the blockchain visa system will initially be trialled with a focus on visitors from India and China.
Tim Bos, CEO, and co-founder at ShareRing confirmed that the new feature will streamline the process of applying for Thailand’s visa as its existing Visa On Arrival process is done at airports or land entry points in Thailand. The current process is paper-based and will require those travelling to bring documents such as airline tickets, accommodation confirmation and photos.
The move to digital visa applications has been associated with risks or fraud, however, eVOA provider, ShareRing, has been working with Gateway Services in order to improve security, speed and the quality of this process via blockchain technology.
ShareRing provides Gateway Services via self-sovereign identity technology OneID, which enables optical character recognition (OCR) and protects data by encrypting all the information into a single file on the blockchain.
Bos commented that such a combination of blockchain tech and OCR reduces the amount of time required for eVOA partners to manually verify all the information.
ShareRing is also looking at the further global expansion of its blockchain-based visa application system after successfully completing its initial trials. Bos commented
“We see this as a blueprint for possible expansion to other countries. It’s not a process that will be rushed though, as we need to make sure we get it right here before entering other countries.”
Many companies and countries are realising the potential of blockchain, in fact, blockchain is already improving our lives.
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