Vaccine Passports
 

Anticipating threads about the various Vaccine Passports now starting up, I invite all comments (within reason!!) however, I expect that we shall not get much firm news for a while. If I see other detailed comments about these passports in other threads, I might move them in here as that will make it easier for people to search.

Currently, I have read about three:

IATA Travel Pass instigated by IATA to try and gain uniformity for carriers. IATA Travel Pass

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....157cc08eac.png

The EU to propose a ‘Digital Pass’ for COVID-19 vaccination/test status to help safer travel. The European Commission has said it will present a legislative plan later this month for what it’s calling a “digital green pass” — aka a digital certificate — which it says will be aimed at facilitating cross-border travel in the age of coronavirus.

President Ursula von der Leyen said today that the planned digital tool will aim to provide proof that a person has been vaccinated — but not just that; the “digital green pass” will also display the results of tests, i.e. for those who have been unable to get a vaccine yet, along with information on “COVID-19 recovery”.
This article is from: Tech Crunch

Israel is launching it's own 'Green Pass' but I have not seen any detail on it.

What everyone wants a single pass - IATA looks the best bet -

So we can be certain that the EU will go its own way?

As I don't and will not, do mobiles as many others of the same ilk, there has to be another solution. I spent 42 years in The Netherlands and had a yellow Vaccination Book (Inentingsbewijs) where all my jabs were recorded... Cholera, Yellow Fever... etc. I kept it in my travel bag and still do. All this talk of invasion of privacy in the UK is rubbish. It's the perfect solution and where is there an invasion? My solution would be an NHS card with all this on it... proof that one has paid one's dues and is entitled to free health care in the UK. It's no invasion of privacy and would be very useful and would save the NHS millions. However 'they' would make so complicated the Health Care budget would have to rise accordingly and even then it wouldn't work! Back to square one.

The key to any scheme is to prevent fraud. I, too, remember the yellow fever certificates but, now, they could be turned out at home in minutes. Whilst I could imagine a system with a credit card sized chip card, using a pin - a mobile phone based system will be inordinately faster to get going.

Quite so. Wasn't there a chap arrested at Luton Airport a couple of weeks ago for peddling fake Covid vaccination certificates ?

Given the speed of the rollout who is going to pay for a dodgy "virus passport" in say 8 weeks time? Much cheaper and easier to have the jab.............

I agree. I've been online at home since the 1990s in the days of AOL Dial-Up but always via a desktop computer; neither my wife nor I has a smart phone nor any wish to get one. I have an old pay-as-you-go 'ordinary' mobile phone (ie no internet capability) which is only ever switched on when in the car in case of breakdown or accident, or when I'm walking in remote parts of the country.

if a digital system is the only way that people will be allowed to travel that will prevent a significant number of mainly elderly people doing so.

I know elderly people who don't participate in the digital age and in all honesty some would not be able to learn how to. They manage to travel through the good offices of relatives or friends who book flights/holidays for them online and print out boarding passes.

There seems to be a perception in our society that everyone has access to the internet which is not the case at all.

What happens if you turn up at an airport and find your smartphone has malfunctioned?

Solutions for those without smartphones will happen... but they will just take longer to become widely available and be more of a hassle for the person concerned

Ultimately, do your parents want to go to a beach in the Med in July 2021, or are they happy to wait until maybe November 2021 instead ?

In the UK, successive govts have used modern technology to save money. All well and good but they phase out the old systems too quickly and leave seniors reliant on family or others to help. If they phased a system out over, say 20 years, that would be better for the populace but they want to claim the savings NOW to boost their credentials. The same will happen here.

"If they phased a system out over, say 20 years," - PAX - the time value of money and the march of technology means that is pointless

What has been amazing during lockdown is how the very elderly have adapted so fast to zoom , on line ordering etc. If its a choice between sitting at home or learning something new so they can go to the pub or Spain I know what they'll do

If someone, elderly or not, has to purchase a smartphone and package that they don't want merely to go abroad once a year it would be an expensive hobby.

If I had to get one I can't think what else I'd use the smatrtphone for. I've had 'old-fashioned' pay as you go phones for 20 years and have rarely used them 'in anger'. Mine is hardly ever switched on even when I take it out for the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. I have to leave myself notes to remind me to use it every 90 days or the credit will be wiped. I forgot once and lost about twenty quid.

It might suprise some that there really are people who have no wish to be in constant phone or internet contact all day long. I accept it's different if someone's employment makes it necessary and if others want to for their own reasons obviously I can have no grouse about that because that's their business and nothing to do with me. I would be irked though if i'm forced to buy a smartphone in order to be able to travel abroad.

Desktop computers have suited me for nearly a quarter of a century and I've never felt the need to go online in any other way.

Does anyone have experience or knowledge of a digitally-stored boarding pass becoming inaccessible at check-in because of a malfunction with the smartphone or other technical matter such as a battery issue? My wife and I regularly visited Australia for VFR pre-pandemic and will hope to be able to do so again at some point in the future but I'd have a dread of a digital vaccine passport being 'locked' in my smartphone.

Merchant - you can buy a brand new (albeit, basic) smartphone nowadays for under £50. Buying one to cover yourself for a vaccine passport need not be particularly expensive. By way of comparison, Trailfinders in west London charge £75 for a yellow fever vaccination (single dose)
Perhaps time to give a smartphone a go and see how you get on with it ? Talk to a friend who can show you the basics, and take your time finding your way around how to use it - maybe also get a friend to download a few apps on it that match your interests. You might find that they're more useful than you think.

Regarding battery issues, most smartphones will last a few hours with constant use (i.e. surfing the Internet on it) or a couple of days if used very lightly. If you carry a charger with you, it's usually possible to find a spare socket at an airport. Some airlines have sockets for phones at each seat as well. As long as you charge your phone fully before leaving home, you are unlikely to have any difficulty with the phone being unable to retrieve a boarding card / vaccine passport. I imagine that on a really long haul flight, you could maybe charge the phone at your seat mid-flight, or if desperate, find a socket at the arrival airport before immigration.
That said, I have downloaded a boarding card to my phone and found the battery ran out of charge before I could board the plane - I've found that if asked nicely, checkin desk staff (even for Ryanair) are always willing to reprint a boarding card for you for free once they see on their system that you've already checked in online

"It might surprise some that there really are people who have no wish to be in constant phone or internet contact all day long"

I'm one of them - there's nothing to stop you from switching it off - but it IS very useful - especially when things go wrong -

A year or so back we had to completely re-organise a business trip when the Chunnel suddenly closed for 5 hours . Sitting in a cafe outside Gare du Nord we manged the whole thing in 30 minutes - 2 people using smart phones. Trains, car hire, hotels, restaurants and the client (s)

As well as being relatively inexpensive smartphones don't need to act as a phone. They can also communicate with the web using just wi-fi.

Buy a phone and, on the morning of travel make sure it is charged, connect to home wi-fi (or hotel or coffe shop or even airport if you're away from home) update your app, show it as required and travel.

The phone will cost you more than a basic non-smart but it means you can transfer your payg, keep the same number and even have a tiny bit of data to use if you can't connect to wi-fi. Otherwise you've got a tiny laptop you can use for anything you might use a computer for provided you have a wifi signal.

BA announce: Covid-19: British Airways plans app-based travel pass
Looks like IAG are going alone by putting the Vaccine report into their standard APP, rather than with IATA. No comment.

BA Plans Covid App

Paxboy
Its good that BA and indeed other carriers are at least thinking about this but as this is a world wide pandemic could we not get an international standard just like the Yellow Fever cert that has been mentioned. It doe not seem to be so difficult to organize, maybe WHO could propose something, but what ever is chosen needs to be rolled out quickly.

Cheers
Mr Mac

I worked in telecommunications for 27 years so have always been up to speed with this since the late 1970s. I now work freelance in another field and 100% of my work arrives via my mobile phone - as voice calls. I have a Smartphone for the usual reasons. However, when I travel and have a boarding pass in the relevant 'app' of the carrier, I still print out the pass and carry the paper. I have printed confirmation of every flight, car and hotel booking in a trip. At the end of the trip, they go in the recycle bin.

I can see that, in the early months, one might have to register vaccinations with your carrier AND another scheme. For those not regularly using modern technology this will be limiting. We might hope that the carriers will realise this early on and establish a 'vaccine check-in desk' to stop at before bag drop. It will be cheaper than senior citizens not travelling.

Some might have, but many have not. None of the senior members of my family (all in their 80s) can do anything meaningful, or reliably, online. The thought of my mother having financial capability in her mobile phone is a thieves/scammers dream. She manages because I do things like electricity, phone, gas, council tax for her. I am joint bank account holder and order things from Amazon to be sent.
Twice, in the last month, she has phoned me in a panic because she received calls from “Amazon”, saying they would take £79 from her bank and I have had a heckuva job convincing her that she
a. Does not have an account with Amazon
b. They do not know her bank details
Not being able to travel there (other side of the country) since last October doesn’t help with things like meter reading, central heating programming, fixing small stuff and I am not sure if she can manage much longer without a hug from somebody - she is disabled and cares for my alzheimer sufferer father. Technology is great for most of us but the oldest generation are being totally ignored by “progress”.

What is needed is something like a credit card concept for vaccination. Issued by private companies, controlled by governments and more reliable than your average fake drivers licence from the novelty store. Even without the final vaccination dates the ID-card part of it could be rolled out now and everybody get prepared. Even nicer would be to do it app based only without any plastic and physical card. Could even be hooked to passport or ID cards if somebody needs to have "something physical".

Less Hair
Yes something linked to passport would be ideal, but I would take a CC size cert as well just in case. As PAXBoy said he takes paper copies of tracel docs, so do I as technology can fall over at times especially if the operator is tired / jet lagged and some paper or CC does help I find.
Cheers
Mr Mac

Today the point is to be "registered in somebody's server" regardless of any printout. As boarding passes work without paper these days I'd day we could do vacc passes mobile only as well. Like apple pay for vaccination certificates.
What will be the point? To get some government certified proof of vaccination, the vaccination date(s), type/version and possible end of validity.

One useful aspect of carrying back-up printed copies of travel documents is - social distancing! You can hand the document over or hold it up without them having to get close to you phone. Perhaps print in larger type.

Many thanks to those who have responded to my post and addressed the points and questions I raised.

It's not the cost or the technical aspects that I'm concerned about personally. When I first went online at home nearly 25 years ago I don't suppose more than 20-30% of the UK's population was online then. People would ask me what the internet was, and in those days I helped a number to get online themselves, some of whom now have the latest bells and whistles smartphones. I've had a basic pay-as-you-go moble phone for nearly the same lenght of time as my internet connectivity but have never felt the need to access the web by other than my desktop - ten years ago I did switch from Microsoft to iMac.

My point really is why should everyone be expected to run their lives, at least in part, via the internet? I really do know people who would struggle with a smartphone if the only way they could travel was by using digital technology. If such things as vaccine certificates become a reality and can only be used digitally then I will have no option but to fall in line if I want to continue travelling abroad.

Once again, many thanks for the helpful comments. They are appreciated.

MV - society moves on - I can remember when having a fixed line telephone was rare and everything was done by post

In the last few years we've had to print our own boarding cards, checkin online, get ESTA s etc (only online) . It rarely all happens at once but constant change is the way of the world I'm afraid

Hopefully the boarding card printing will be a thing of the past soon.

I print the b***** things and when i get to the egates they're often refused so I have to trail back to the desk. And the number of people there with boarding cards on their phones doesn't indicate that that method is much better

The current passport has chips that contain information. Can anyone tell me if there would be space to include vaccination data which would make the whole process seemless. As mentioned one approach would be to have an ESTA approach with proof of vaccine required when applying. This obviously needs the co-operation of the administration issuing the passport and the ESTA would ideally be valid for all countries (some chance of that happening I know). The advantage is that it would be far harder to counterfeit and simple at passport control. although again the issuing of ESTAs would require the co-operation of the issuing nation.

I don't have a smartphone and requiring me to acquire one would in effect be a hefty tax. There are computer sceptics like me who struggle with computers, for example by forgetting to turn off autoplay functions and getting two things playing at once (and then closing the wrong window). How do I stop unwanted e-mails? Then I find that computers are always updating at the wrong time - if I were to turn my phone one I would probably see see system updating in the passport queue.. Yes I am sure that a competent teenage could sort things out in no time at all but I am not of that demographic. Rant over!

There probably is space on the chip - you would be surprised how much data can be placed in such chips.
My guess is that this will take a minimum of five years as the UN would have to cordinate all nations to write/read the data in the same way - then for passports to start holding it. It probably will happen.

Anything paper is useless and it will be knocked off in no time. There has to be something that can be verified by the vaccinating country and tied to the person asking for verification, which means it must be tied to a verifiable ID (passport, national ID) in one way or the other.

IATA would have been ideal as they already have the network, the app and all it would need is a country's immigration and the vaccinating government to tie the relevant parts of the vaccination database to it and allow it to be queried - all securely.

If every airline and/or country goes it's own way, and immigration officers are expected to evaluate a mass of disparate forms of vaccination verification, there are going to be some long waits at airports in our future IMHO.

The BBC has a series on Radio 4 called How To Vaccinate The World this is also available as a Podcast.
The episode first broadcast on Monday 1st March is on Vaccine Passports. Obviously, everthing changes all the time.

From The Washington Post:

I feel there may be some ambiguity in the word "passport". It is arguable that we need not only a solution for international travel but for domestic purposes too.
Staying with the passport as an international document it has been suggested here that you need data space in the chip on the passport. I disagree. Think about the ESTA (and for that matter a US visa). That isn't loaded onto the chip. The passport is scanned at the airport and a message is sent to the US to ask if the pasenger is OK to travel. You don't need anything other than details already on the chip. You arrive at US immigration and the scan the passport again and they could quite easily send a message to the UK database "is this person vaccinated?". XML across the internet (plus some security) and it's done.
I've used the US and the UK as an example but the principle should be possible worldwide.

Sounds easy, in practice it would be very difficult.

What you have described is a bilateral arrangement whereby the passport issuing authority (say the UK) who have encoded the chip with your ID have to supply the country you are travelling to (say the USA) with proof of the the vaccination status of the passport holder.

That would work fine for the two countries involved (and possibly reciprocally).

But multiply that by all the combinations of passport issuing authorities, vaccinating nations and countries that travellers want to go to, and it rapidly becomes extremely complicated.

IHMO, the only way such a worldwide system has even a chance of being implemented is under the auspices of ICAO, or even its parent the UN. I'm not holding my breath.

The airlines exchange messages all the time - millions of them. When the US started the process of demanding passenger lists so that they could authroise the aircraft to depart the airlines knuckled down and met the requirement.
Look at it the other way - you need to define how the data is going to be formatted in the passport chip. Then you have to get it loaded - you don't want people able to add it themselves. But, you'll find that the whole point of the chip is that it is read only. If you made it possible to add things after creation the potential for fraud would be enormous. If it was possible to add things to the passport chip surely visas would be added but Im not aware that happens.
This is the specification https://www.icao.int/publications/Do...p9_cons_en.pdf and you need section 5.3 which says:

"This edition of Doc 9303 is based on the assumption that eMRTDs will not be written to after personalization. Therefore the personalization process SHOULDlock the contactless IC as a final step. Once the contactless IC has been locked (after personalization and before issuance) no further data can be written to, modified or deleted from the contactless IC. After issuance a locked contactless IC cannot be unlocked."

I don't disagree with any of that.

As I said, the solution, however it might be implemented, is far from easy.

I had my second jab yesterday and while waiting I saw a sign up concerning a new app that the MOH is promoting so when I got home I downloaded it. Everything here is smartphone and if you can't use one, you cannot even get into the shops so this is called Health Hub and it has the records of my 2 jabs. It shows the date and place I had them, which variant it was, and the batch number. They also gave me a piece of paper with the same details.

The paper thing I think is quite worthless, anyone can print anything these days but perhaps the Health Hub would work. Certainly getting back into Singapore I would imagine so.

Agreed. How would you convince an immigration officer in say Egypt who probably can't read anything other than a passport that a Dr's note is proof of jabs? What a shame we don't have ID cards, but that debate is for another time.

Just as long as we don't need a separate app for each country and each airline.................