Thailand integrates blockchain into E-Visa system

The blockchain-powered eVOA system plans on speeding up and protecting the digital visa application process.
Thailand will roll out the eVOA service initially with a focus on tourists from China and India.

Rajarshi Mitra Independent Analyst

Thailand is planning to apply blockchain to its Electronic Visa On Arrival (eVOA). The country’s new blockchain-powered eVOA system plans on speeding up and protecting the digital visa application process. The system will be available for five million visitors from 15+ countries.

The eVOA feature is the result of a collaboration between Australian travel company ShareRing and Gateway Services. According to a press release shared with Cointelegraph, Gateway Services owns the license to process eVOA for Thailand. Thailand will roll out the blockchain-enabled eVOA service initially with a focus on tourists from China and India, as per the announcement.

Tim Bos, CEO and co-founder of ShareRing, said that the latest feature will allegedly streamline the process of Thailand’s visa application. The current Visa On Arrival process is done at airports or land entry points in Thailand. The paper-based process is tedious and requires visitors to carry several documents. This process generally takes about an hour to complete, he added.

ShareRing CEO stated that the firm has been working with Gateway Services to improve the speed, security and quality of this process. ShareRing provides Gateway Services with its self-sovereign identity technology OneID. This protects data by encrypting all the data in one file on the blockchain. He explained that this combination of blockchain tech and OCR reduces the amount of time required for eVOA partners to manually verify all the data.

Author

Rajarshi Mitra

Independent Analyst

Rajarshi entered the blockchain space in 2016. He is a blockchain researcher who has worked for Blockgeeks and has done research work for several ICOs. He gets regularly invited to give talks on the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

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