Corporate travel reactivation: a digital health passport might be the solution
With vaccination programs advancing in most countries and social distancing measures being relaxed, the long-awaited return of corporate travel finally appears to be on the horizon. But there won’t be a simple reversion to business as usual. Among the most significant new elements of post-pandemic travel will be the need to prove vaccinations and/or negative test results to access the different entities or events people plan to attend. A digital health passport seems to be the approach to this situation.
Most of the models proposed are based on smart phones and try to integrate the whole vaccination and testing processes. The main preoccupation is the handling of sensitive data, but most developers are aware of this and are addressing the issue, making the data stay in the device avoiding information exchange. Instead, the data is maintained in a decentralized format throughout the entire process, from the medical lab to the passport holder’s smartphone, where it’s encoded into a QR code which can be scanned at airport check-in or at immigration control upon arrival to verify a vaccine or negative test. If the app is deleted from the phone, all the linked info is wiped out along with it.
Meanwhile, other passports are incorporating biometric identification to make sure access that the carrier of the digital passport is the same person to whom it was issued.
The question of where exactly passports will be located is another question that needs to be answered. Some of these passports are thought to be used to gain access to events demonstrating in a safe and private manner that the user has been vaccinated or tested.
While the promises and potential benefits of digital health passports are clear, one obstacle that can’t be solved by technology alone is the risk that basing entry and access requirements on the ability to prove vaccination or negative Covid status risks creating two “classes” of travelers: those who can do so and those who can’t. This type of privilege will put a number of people in disadvantage and many of them beig already victims of inequity and discrimination, not just as a result of Covid, but dating back well before the whole crisis began. This includes those without easy access to accepted testing and vaccine networks, and/or the technology to carry a digital passport.
It’s important to have in mind that 3.4 billion people in the world don’t have internet access and over 1 billion people do not have a cell phone of any kind.
Adding another layer of complexity is that several Covid vaccines have been manufactured, and some have not been authorized for entry to some countries for different reasonswhich could lead to countries turning away travelers on the grounds they received a vaccine considered inadequate.