- Health and technology giants are teaming up to create standards for digital vaccination passports, so people can prove they’ve had a COVID-19 vaccine.
- Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, Cerner, Epic Systems and the Mayo Clinic are part of the Vaccination Credential Initiative.
- These passports can be useful for boarding planes and going to work, school, grocery stores, live shows and sporting events.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Large companies, healthcare organizations and nonprofits announced on Thursday morning that they were working together to create digital vaccination passports so that people could prove their COVID-19 immunization status.
The Vaccination Credential Initiative – a coalition that includes Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, Cerner, Epic Systems and the Mayo Clinic – said it is developing technology standards to allow people to access their immunization records and check whether they have received the vaccine.
VCI said people without smartphones can receive QR codes printed with the information.
Read More: Young, healthy people have discovered a loophole to get the COVID vaccine without skipping the line
Virgin Atlantic, United Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Lufthansa and JetBlue said in December that they would start accepting a digital health pass called CommonPass as evidence 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 aim of the Vaccination Credential Initiative is to empower individuals with digital access to their vaccination records so that they can use tools like CommonPass to safely return to travel, work, school and life, while protecting the privacy of their data,” Paul Meyer , the CEO of the Commons Project Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Geneva, said in a press release.
“For some time, most of all of us will have to demonstrate negative tests for COVID-19 or an updated vaccination status to follow the normal routines of our lives,” Dr. Brad Perkins, of the chief medical foundation, told The New York Times.
Perkins added that this would happen “whether to get on a plane and go to a different country, whether to work, to school, to the supermarket, to live shows or sporting events”.
There is no existing federal system for people to access their immunization records online or set their vaccination status. The US government gives people paper cards reminding them to take the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The UK government is due to test a medical passport system developed by iProov, a biometric company, and Mvine, a cyber security group, the Telegraph reported on Tuesday. The passport could be accessed through a free application and would allow users to prove that they have been vaccinated.