Inside the race to create a covid passport and change travel as we know it

Armand Arton has long prophesied the death of the passport in the form of a paper booklet that we carry around with us. But its decline is likely to accelerate, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, he says, as the race to create the first global vaccine passport continues. onwards.

Iceland and Poland began issuing Covid-19 vaccine certificates last month. Denmark, Sweden and Estonia are hot on their heels and Israel’s “green pass” will allow carriers to visit gyms and bars. The European race to heat a reliable vaccine passport, led by Greece.

“Certificates are what we call certificates, not passports,” said Alex Patelis, chief economic adviser to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has asked for a European certificate for people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19.

“For countries such as Greece, which are dependent on tourism, it is vital that this issue is resolved before the summer season,” Mitsotakis wrote in a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The country is in dire need of tourists: One-fifth of the country’s GDP comes from tourism and the economy contracted by 11.6% last year after a very slow summer season.

The draft Greek vaccine certificate shows what this would look like. A digital QR code can be scanned when someone enters the country by air, sea or rail, something that is being tested in a test run by Cyprus and Israel. An agreement between the three countries could allow certificate holders to move freely between them and the UK could be next, according to Haris Theoharis, Greek tourism minister.

How would a vaccine certificate work? Greek authorities swiftly say it would not be a “mandatory requirement” for travelers to have one. Instead, anyone entering Greece with a vaccine certificate could bypass all the usual rigmarole required by unvaccinated travelers, such as quarantines, show negative PCR tests or fill out passenger locator forms.

“Greece is working on a number of bilateral agreements with third countries to allow the recognition of vaccine certificates,” Patelis said. Eventually, certificates need a unique QR code type, ”

But behind the humble QR code, there are a number of issues that need to be resolved first, according to the Royal Society. He picked up 12 of them in a paper published last week. “International normalization is one of the criteria we believe is essential,” said Professor Melinda Mills, director of the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science at Oxford University and lead author of the report. .

Security is another. “You need a certification system that is very tight and robust,” said David Hollick, CEO of Logifect, one of eight companies that have received UK government grants to work on a digital security document.

“Anyone can cheat the Israeli vaccine certificate,” a headline recently ran Haaretz, after finding faults in their green card scheme. Apple has removed dozens of suspicious apps that offer Covid-19 vaccine certificates from their App Store. Greek authorities are concerned after a bad experience with passenger detection forms and PCR test results.

Any vaccination certificate must be dynamic. “Let’s say a variable is coming and you can see that the vaccine is starting to decline,” says Hollik. “You need to find a quick way to test real-time ways to cancel a passport, revoke a passport or re-issue a passport.”

Then there is the race itself. A number of companies and countries are increasingly coming up with their own versions of vaccine certificates. However, if organizations such as the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) do not quickly agree on a common set of frameworks, the result could be “a complex disruption of structures. inappropriate bilateral certification, ”says Andrew Bud, founder and CEO of iProov, which, along with Mvine, is testing a vaccine certification in the UK

However, for the company or country that is breaking Covid ‘s vaccine certification, the benefits could be huge. They will change what we traveled, not just this year, but far into the future.

Vaccination permits may change subject to change

“My prediction is that, over the next 20 years, we will see more innovation and transformation of the passport as a document than ever before,” said Arton. advising families and individuals worldwide on global citizenship and mobility.

In the same way that the need for Covid-19 vaccines has put turbo on the science behind vaccine science, the race to prove it is pushing boundaries in recognition technologies. The biometrics and cloud technologies that a vaccine certificate would use are just the technologies needed for passport-free travel.

And just as the highest numbers are getting these new vaccines, there could also be a new desire for recognition technologies, says Arton: “People in general may be more inclined to the idea that already in progress. “

Multilateral organizations such as ICAO’s DA and IATA are already planning for a period of passport-free travel.

It is, after all, a completely logical situation to say Bud: “Why do you take your passport with you when it is kept secure in the cloud? If someone stole it or you let it down toilet you just lost your credentials. “

With any vaccine certification that could use both cloud technology and biometrics, international travel in 2021 could be one big test for passport-free travel. Technical firms keep a close eye on them, with the potential for big contracts when the world gets to travel again.

“This is very important,” Bud said. “The evolution of vaccine certification will certainly drive the full range of digital identity in the future. So, this is not just about Covid, this is about something even bigger.”