Swedish startup Epicenter unveils rice-sized microchip implant that stores your COVID vaccine passport under your skin and is read with technology used to take contactless payments.
Epicenter, a Stockholm-based startup, unveiled a new way of carrying around a COVID vaccine passport – in a microchip implanted under your skin.
The implant can be read by any device using the near-field communication (NFC) protocol – technology used for contactless payments and keyless entry systems.
In a video shared by Epicenter, Hannes Sjöblad, chief distribution officer, has the chip in his arm and simply waves a smartphone over it to pull up his vaccination status.
'Implants are very versatile technology that can be used for many different things, and right now it is very convenient to have COVID passport always accessible on your implant', he said in a statement.
Many venues, restaurants, bars, concert halls and museums, across the US are requiring visitors present their vaccination status in order to enter the building.
And Epicenter wants to make presenting this information as easy as possible.
'In case your phone runs out of battery, it's always accessible to you. So of course, that's how we use this technology today, next year we are going to use it for something else,' said Sjoblad.
The microchip sits directly beneath the skin, either in the arm or between the thumb and forefinger.
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