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Covid-19 vaccine passport set to become world’s most powerful in 2021
Governments to issue Covid vaccination passports.
Several governments along with health and technology groups are working together to create a digital vaccination passport which has already been tipped to become the most powerful passport of 2021.
In the US, the Vaccination Credential Initiative, a coalition of organisations including Microsoft, Oracle and Mayo Clinic, aims to create a framework to verify genuine vaccinated travellers while spotting unvaccinated fraudsters.
The coalition builds on work done by one of its members, The Commons Project, to develop an internationally accepted digital certific ate which is already being used by all three major airline alliances.
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“Individuals are going to need to have to produce vaccination records for a lot of aspects of getting back to life as normal,” Paul Meyer, chief executive of The Commons Project, said.
“We live in a globally connected world. We used to anyway — and we hope to again.”
Elsewhere, EU leaders will soon debate whether to allow Covid-vaccine passport holders to freely move within the continent like during normal times, while non-vaccinated citizens remain restricted.
The proposal is being pushed by the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, however, there are serious doubts in other EU capitals about the wisdom of the move.
Concerns were aired during a recent meeting of EU health ministers that any system that discriminates between those fortunate enough to have received the vaccine and the rest should not be implemented.
In regards to citizens from outside the EU, an official confirmed for SchengenVisaInfo.com that proof of vaccination would be required for Schengen visa application and visa-free entry.
Travel experts at the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), a forum for the travel and tourism industry, believe that it will take a significant amount of time to vaccinate the majority of the world’s population, in particular those in less advanced countries.
Some leaders such as Canada’s Justin Trudeau, have confirmed they are not considering vaccination passports as he explained “there are a broad range of reasons why someone might not get vaccinated and I’m worried about creating knock-on, undesirable effects in our community.”
