South Korean hospital adopts PASS QR code app for IDV

South Korea’s major mobile carriers announced that Yongin Severance Hospital at Yonsei University in Seoul will enable ID verification through the PASS app.

PASS is a digital identity app developed by South Korean telecom providers that enables identity authentication services via mobile driver’s licenses and resident identity cards. App users can also pre-install the PASS identity verification service widget on their mobile phone and click the widget to display a QR code screen when needed.

During registration, treatment and payment, patients can generate a verification QR code within the PASS app and scan it at a kiosk, sending the relevant data to Yongsin Severance Hospital via NICE Information Communication, a major payment value-added network (VAN) provider in Korea.

Identity verification is now mandatory at South Korea’s hospitals, following an amendment of the National Health Insurance Act last year. Hospital staff must manually check patients’ physical identification cards or mobile ID verification services.

SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus and other telecom companies are collaborating to drive use cases for PASS, having brought the tech to more than 3,600 community service centers last year. The hospital is the first in Korea to use the system, but there are potential use cases in policing, elections and domestic airline boarding procedures, as well as for identity and age verification in convenience stores, movie theaters and car rental outfits. The service has more than 10 million subscribers.

A statement from the three major companies says that, “starting with the case of Yongin Severance Hospital, we plan to continuously expand the use of the PASS mobile identification verification service to major hospitals and clinics across the nation, as well as to the commerce and institutional sectors. We will lead the way in establishing a safer and more efficient identity verification system as a lifestyle-oriented identification app.”

PASS-based identification requires a mobile phone with a subscriber identity module (SIM) card that is registered in the user’s legal name.

Digital residence card rollout extends to all citizens

Digital residents cards are now available to all South Korean citizens for use on mobile devices.

Korea JoongAng Daily reports on an announcement from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Presidential Committee on the Digital Platform Government, confirming that citizens in Seoul, Busan and Gwangju can apply for a digital residence card at local community centers.

The digital ID rollout began with a pilot in nine of the country’s administrative regions. The three urban centers are the last spots to activate the program because of the potentially high demand.

The process is even simpler for those who have IC chip-embedded plastic ID cards; they can download their electronic ID by scanning the chip with their phones.

Even expats are able to access mobile ID, provided they are aged 14 or older and have smartphones in their names.

Digital cards are attached to a single phone and cannot be housed on multiple devices. They are valid at government offices, financial institutions and hospitals. Fifteen banks have electronic systems that can process mobile ID cards for opening new bank accounts.

Support in Samsung Wallet is expected next month.

Article Topics

digital ID  |  digital identity  |  identity verification  |  mDL (mobile driver's license)  |  national ID  |  QR code  |  South Korea