Initial ASEAN Digital Security and Interoperability Standard Proposal

In this work, the result of the initial attempt to propose an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) digital security and interoperability standard to support the mobility among ASEAN countries is presented. Literature reviews on existing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) related digital technologies of six ASEAN member countries are conducted. Several concerns related to creating/implementing the ASEAN digital security and interoperability standard are discussed including the technology accessing concern, the data security and privacy concern, and the data interoperability and availability concern. The proposed solution toward creating an ASEAN digital security and interoperability standard is then presented. To evaluate the proposed solution, a survey has been conducted on representatives of nine ASEAN countries on four main issues including the security standards and requirements, the interoperability standard and requirements, the certifications, and the implementation challenges. According to the survey and the discussion, seven recommendations were proposed toward creating an ASEAN digital security and interoperability standard. First, each country collects and maintains the data of its own citizens and also provides a method to authenticate and access the data by authorized requests. Second, QR code standard or ASEAN QR code standard must be agreed upon so that it can be authenticated and verified by ASEAN countries. Third, health risk assessment must be agreed upon to be used. Forth, the security standard, the data, the data format and the exchange protocol must be agreed upon at the ASEAN policy level while adoption of international standards as an implementation guideline will ease of the process and neutralize different requirements from various countries. Fifth, any accountability of incidents must be agreed upon at the ASEAN policy level. Sixth, certification might be extended to certification of risk assessment for organizations, products or services. Seventh, zoning to differentiate COVID19 risk level can be used to facilitate traveler’s mobility.