The health passport will be the key to the resumption of travel. Things are gradually getting settled, but in a confused way that suggests a chaotic summer to say the least. By trying too hard to play their own card, airlines run the risk of completely confusing passengers on a subject that is already unclear, with the risk of malfunctions as a result.
What is the health passport?
And we use the term health passport deliberately, rather than vaccine passport, for a good reason: depending on the country, no one agrees on what it will contain.
In a nutshell, this will be a document – digital, of course – containing and certifying the documents proving that a person does not represent any risk and can therefore travel.
Here, we’ll be deliberately vague on the notion of “document”: at the outset, some people thought almost exclusively of a vaccination certificate, while others thought it should include PCR or antigenic tests, which will still be useful for a long time to come, given the speed at which vaccination campaigns are progressing in some countries. And some countries consider a person who has already had COVID to be healthy by definition, while others do not.
Similarly, the purpose of such a passport is still very vague. While there was no doubt from the outset that it would be used to authorize people to travel, some countries are already planning to use it extensively, for example to authorize access to restaurants, entertainment venues, etc…
What’s at stake for the health passport?
The health passport poses two major challenges: portability and authenticity.
Portability means that once tested negative or vaccinated, it must be possible to easily transfer the document proving this to the passport.
Authenticity means that the validity and origin of the document must be certifiable. The obvious aim is to prevent the proliferation of false documents or documents issued by convenience.
This last point is not the least important given the stakes involved, as the question necessarily arises as to who is responsible if someone manages to defraud the system, or if in all good faith a person considered “safe” was in fact carrying the virus and took it with them in their luggage.
How do you get your test or vaccination “recognized”?
Let’s start with the first point: getting your test or vaccine recognized. Today, you can present your PCR test or vaccination certificate on paper, or ideally in a digital or scanned/photographed version.
Without even mentioning the passport, this already raises the question of the document’s legibility: surprisingly, not all of them are written or “subtitled” in English. A problem when traveling.
In general, how can an application :
- recognize that the document submitted to it is a vaccination certificate / PCR test?
- identify the data in the document?
- certify that the certificate is authentic?
Until now, and even without a passport, this has worked on a small scale and in an almost artisanal mode, but it’s going to have to be scaled up.
This would mean at least two things.
The first is a standardization of documents, perhaps with a QR code containing the essential information as well as the origin of the document.
Today, we’re far from it. And having recently seen my mother’s COVID vaccination certificate, I’m curious to know how it can be recognized by any app, let alone certified as original and issued by an authorized professional.
With such a document in hand, I’ll be wondering how to use it and get it recognized. What’s more, it’s written in French only.
The second is to guarantee the authenticity of the document.
Depending on your laboratory you will choose your airline
The various solutions available on the market today understand this, and for the most part only recognize documents issued by selected and validated partners.
The IATA Travel Pass clearly specified that the test or vaccination had to be carried out by an authorized facility, and that it was the facility itself that would check-in the document into the system.
The AOKPASS solution used for testing by Air France follows the same path, offering to upload for a test carried out in a partner laboratory. OK, Cerballiance and Biogroup (mentioned in the press release) have wide coverage, but what if I do my test elsewhere?
Will I be “compatible” with one solution and not another, depending on the laboratory performing my test? So it will be easier for me to travel with one airline than another?
And here we’re only talking about PCR tests carried out by laboratories, which represent a known and traced circuit. But by definition, antigen testing (when authorized, i.e. rarely) does not fall into this category. But what about vaccines?
Today, depending on the country and the vaccine strategy, there is no standard circuit or “trusted” facility to include in such a system. In France, for the time being, vaccination centers are being set up to hand out an ordinary paper card as proof of vaccination. What standards does it meet? How can one certify that it corresponds to an actual vaccination? Can the reality of this vaccination be traced in just two clicks? Certainly not.
And tomorrow, when doctors and pharmacists will be able to vaccinate as well, this will only add to the illegibility of the system. On a global scale, it’s going to be a real mess when vaccinated people want to transform their paper card into an authenticated digital certificate!
Independent passport or airline passport?
And to add to the complexity, if the term “passport” conjures up images of the good old passport we all know, a single, universal document that applies to everyone, forget it!
The system proposed by IATA is nevertheless attractive: a centralized system that authenticates and certifies documents, and makes them available to the various travel professionals in a secure manner. “A single source of truth” as the saying goes.
Well, that would be too easy!
Many of the airlines that have so far decided to launch experiments in this field have gone it alone, integrating the services of a solution provider into their application rather than connecting to a centralized system like the one proposed by IATA.
Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad and COPA have or will be testing the IATA Travel Pass.
Air France has started with AOK PASS.
British Airways and American Airlines have opted for Verifly.
This is yet another complexity for the traveler, who may have to fill in several applications.
The worst-case scenario, and one that will undoubtedly arise, is that of connecting flights on airlines using different “passports”. It would therefore be logical for the choice of a solution to be made at least at alliance level, because more than ever it is important to certify the traveler “end to end” and not “segment by segment”. But that’s not the direction we seem to be heading.
Which health passports will be recognized at airports?
But it gets worse: not only are the airlines playing their own card, but so do the airports.
AOK Pass claims to be in contact with 170 airports ready to use its solution.
We are therefore also witnessing a “specialization” of airports according to the health passport used.
For example, Verifly has made Denver a test airport.
What happens if I fly to Denver with an airline that uses AOK Pass or IATA Travel Pass? Today, the question doesn’t arise because we’re in a phase of experimentation where everyone is trying things out on their own, and the possibility of traveling is very limited. But what about tomorrow?
When the European Union steps in
And that’s not all. Eager not to sabotage the upcoming tourist season, the European Union is planning to introduce a health passport, a “green digital certificate” to facilitate travel within the Union. Green ? It all sounds like demagoguery, but okay.
While PCR tests and vaccination should undoubtedly be included, previous contamination and the presence of antibodies in the body should also be taken into account for travel purposes. But not all countries agree on this last point.
And of course it’s going to take the form of…a digital application. One more. Yet another different system that will be superimposed on those previously mentioned… provided that European countries agree, legislate quickly enough, adopt the system and that the national authorities in charge of personal data protection (such as the CNIL in France) do not reject it.
If not… it will certainly be a tool for each country, juxtaposed to what is already implemented by the tourism industry.
We can’t see what would have prevented the European Union from using the IATA Travel Pass as a basis, but no…
Standardization of health passports urgently needed
Today, travel opportunities are rare, and we’re in a phase of discovery and experimentation. So it’s only logical to see a proliferation of initiatives that are not always compatible or coherent.
But this cannot last long, and a standard will have to emerge and be shared by all.
For the passenger, everything must be transparent, so that they don’t have to fill in the same information several times, and so that they have a single status report for their entire journey, and don’t find themselves stuck halfway through for reasons of administrative complication.
Failure to do so could lead to two things. First of all, an overly complex system that puts customers off. Secondly, and even worse, it’s a complicated and therefore fallible system, the first malfunction of which will affect the entire industry.
And we’re not even talking about respect for personal data, which we’d prefer to see entrusted to a single trusted player rather than scattered all over the place.
No doubt everything will soon be fixed. But the sooner the better.
Image : health passportby Robert Avgustin via Shutterstock
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