What is a Vaccine Passport?

Blog: Bizagi Blog

Vaccine passports are one way to revive industries stalled
by the COVID-19 pandemic. Immunity passports were debated multiple times during
2020, but it’s the approval of vaccines in nations across the globe that has given
rise to the potential to make vaccine passports a reality.

Technology companies have responded to this need, and
software solutions including CoronaPass,
offer the capability to create such a system, and to customize it to your
specific needs.

Do we need vaccine passports?

In simple terms, vaccine passports provide a way to validate whether an individual has been vaccinated or not. As vaccines are distributed, there is an opportunity to limit the spread of the virus to new areas and to the most vulnerable members of society. Vaccine passports can be used by authorities who require a digital passport to be shown before individuals can carry out certain activities or enter a restricted area.

The need for vaccine passports in different scenarios is likely to attract a lot of debate, and raises plenty of potential issues. The most important opportunity that vaccine passports can create is offering a way to create freedom where it currently does not exist, such as the ability to go to large events, or travel in and out of high risk countries.

HR teams across the globe also face a challenge in building strategies to safely keep workplaces open or bring employees back into office environments. Vaccine passports may provide one part of the solution.

Who is using vaccine passports?

None of us hope for vaccine passports to become essential
for carrying out day to day activities, such as going to the shops or a cafe
they may well become essential during 2021 in certain industries such as
travel, large scale hospitality and within the healthcare sector.

So far, several countries including the UK and France have
discussed the possibility of using digital passports as part of their response
to the COVID-19 pandemic. In France, one potential benefit of such a system is
that it could encourage the population to get the vaccine, as 61%
said they would definitely not get the vaccine when polled in December.

From 2021, the Australian airline Qantas
has announced that it will demand passengers provide proof of vaccination
before flying in or out of the country. Right now, the air travel industry has
been dramatically reduced across the globe, making it more difficult for people
to move around the world, and creating challenges for the world’s supply
chains.

How do vaccine passports work?

Vaccine passports work on the principal that a digital
application can validate whether an individual has had a vaccination by
checking against an official healthcare database. The systems created so far,
including CoronaPass, avoid many of
the privacy concerns by ensuring that all data is protected and held by
healthcare authorities, so all the application is able to provide is a valid
pass because it has no access to an individual’s personal data.

Such applications often include a validator application that is used to scan the pass, which is represented in the form of a QR code.

Will vaccine passports become commonplace?

Many organizations and governments are currently exploring
vaccine passports for several reasons. One is that particular activities,
including international air travel, are extremely difficult to make entirely
COVID-safe. So long as that is the case, business operations and customer
experiences will continue to be disrupted by the measures currently in place to
control the spread of the virus.

Air travel is currently one of the areas where vaccine passports are most likely to become essential, along with live concerts, football or baseball games. Anywhere large numbers of people congregate currently has the potential to become a ‘superspreading’ event. In addition, anywhere that requires people to be in a small space with strangers (such as an aircraft), makes it extremely difficult for individuals to properly distance themselves from others for their own safety, or those surrounding them.

How can I create a vaccine passport app?

One way to create a vaccine passport solution for your
particular requirements, is to use a system such as CoronaPass, created by
global software company Bizagi in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the
world’s first COVID-19 pass solution to market in 2020 – making use of the
company’s market leading low-code automation platform.

Learn more and contact the team at www.coronapass.org