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- Health and tech giants are coming together to create standards for digital vaccination passports so people can prove they’ve been injected with COVID-19.
- Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, Cerner, Epic Systems and the Mayo Clinic are part of the Vaccination Credential Initiative.
- These passports could be useful for getting on planes and going to work, school, grocery stores, live concerts and sporting events.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Large corporations, healthcare organizations and nonprofits announced Thursday morning that they are working together to create digital vaccination passports so people can prove their COVID-19 vaccination status.
The Vaccination Credential Initiative – a coalition comprising Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, Cerner, Epic Systems and the Mayo Clinic – said it was developing technology standards to allow people to access their immunization records and check if they had received their vaccine.
The VCI said people without a smartphone could receive QR codes printed with the information.
Read more: Young, healthy people have discovered loophole to get COVID vaccine without skipping the line
Virgin Atlantic, United Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Lufthansa and JetBlue said in December they would start accepting a digital health pass called CommonPass as proof of a negative COVID-19 test.
This pass was created by one of the members of the VCI, the Commons Project Foundation, and is designed to be an international standard. The initiative announced Thursday is separate – and more ambitious.
“The goal of the Vaccination Certificates Initiative is to give individuals digital access to their immunization records so they can use tools like CommonPass to safely return to travel, work, school and to life, while protecting the privacy of their data, “Paul Meyer, the CEO of the Commons Project Foundation, a non-profit organization in Geneva, said in a press release.
“For a while, most of us are going to have to demonstrate a negative COVID-19 test or up-to-date vaccine status to follow normal routines in our lives,” Dr. Brad Perkins, the foundation’s physician-in-chief, told the New York Times.
Perkins added that this would happen “whether it be taking a plane and going to another country, whether it be to work, school, the grocery store, for live concerts or sport events”.
There is no federal system for people to access their immunization records online or set their immunization status. The U.S. government is giving people paper cards reminding them to receive their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The UK government is set to test a health passport system developed by iProov, a biometrics company, and Mvine, a cybersecurity group, The Telegraph reported on Tuesday. The passport would be accessible through a free app and would allow users to prove that they have been vaccinated.
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