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Health and tech groups are working together to create a digital vaccination passport in the hope that governments, airlines and other businesses will demand proof that people have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
The Vaccination Credential Initiative, a coalition of organizations including Microsoft, Oracle and the U.S. nonprofit Mayo Clinic, aims to set standards for verifying whether a person has been vaccinated and to prevent people from falsely claiming to be protected against disease.
The coalition is building on the work done by one of its members, The Commons Project, to develop an internationally accepted digital certificate to prove that travelers have tested negative for Covid-19. The pass developed by the non-profit organization, created with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, is now used by the three major airline alliances.
Paul Meyer, chief executive of The Commons Project, said people vaccinated so far often only received a piece of paper, reminiscent of the “old yellow cards.” By working with healthcare IT companies, such as Epic and Cerner in the US, the new system will be able to tap into electronic medical records to create a digital map.
Mr Meyer said the coalition was in talks with several governments who expected their entry requirements to evolve over the next few months from negative testing to a “hybrid,” accepting tests or proof of vaccination.
“Individuals are going to have to produce vaccination cards for many aspects of returning to normal life,” he added. “We live in a globally connected world. We used to it anyway – and hope to do it again.
Each country can set its own rules such as, for example, which vaccines it will accept. The system will be responsible for keeping the data safe and individuals will keep their records in a digital wallet, or on a paper QR code, so they can control who they share it with.
Joan Harvey, president of Care Solutions for Evernorth, the healthcare arm of insurer Cigna, said she expected some companies, such as event planners, to require proof of vaccination of their clients, while universities could request it from students and employers of workers.
“We insure thousands of companies around the world and this is obviously a very keen interest for them. . . not only how do they do [return to] travel the world and be able to do their job, but to do it in a certified way, where the consumer owns the data, ”she added.
As new variants of the virus spread across the world, The Commons Project says it has seen increasing interest.
“Many countries have closed their borders completely or now have mandatory testing requirements in place for all international travel and all of this has been happening in the last three weeks,” Meyer said.
In the UK, which will require international travelers to provide a negative Covid-19 test from Monday, the government has said no decision on vaccination passports will be made until there is evidence more comprehensive information on the effect of vaccines on transmission.
“As a large number of people from risk groups are vaccinated, we will be able to gather evidence to prove the impact on infection rates, hospitalization and reduction of deaths,” the ministry said. Health and Social Affairs in a statement.
The government, however, funded a pilot health passport system at two companies, the biometric company iProov and the cybersecurity group Mvine. The system will allow thousands of people on two as yet unknown local authorities to upload their vaccine information to an app, which could then be used by the NHS or other agencies to check patient records.
Additional reporting by Anna Gross
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