European Commission presents draft vaccine passport

The European Commission has presented a project of a Digital Green Certificate, which is also known as a vaccine passport. It is intended to facilitate safe and free movement in the EU during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The digital Green Certificate will be evidence that the person has been vaccinated against Covid-19, tested negative for coronavirus (PCR or rapid antigen test), or recovered from Covid-19. It will be available free of charge in digital or paper form. It will contain a QR code that guarantees the security and authenticity of the certificate, as well as a digital signature.

The EC is to create a special portal that will ensure the verification of all certificates throughout the EU and will support the Member States in their technical implementation.

Through the portal, authorities will be able to verify the certificates across the EU. The EC emphasizes that no personal data contained in the vaccine passport will leave the portal or be retained by the Member State carrying out the verification.

It will be up to the Member States themselves to decide how the certificate will be used. If they introduce Covid-19 restrictions and a certification requirement to get to a specific region, for example, these restrictions will have to be the same for all certificate holders.

Where the Member States accept proof of vaccination as justification for not applying public health restrictions such as undergoing testing or undergoing quarantine, they will be required to recognize, under the same conditions, vaccination certificates issued under the green digital certificate scheme.

This obligation would be limited to vaccines that have been authorized throughout the EU, but the Member States may decide to additionally authorize other vaccines. This is a step towards EU countries that already use vaccines that have not been authorized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), such as the Russian Sputnik V in Slovakia and Hungary.

(PAP)