Digital health passports may contribute to the long-term management of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they pose essential questions for the protection of data privacy and human rights.
Several countries are betting on a corona passport to be able to return to the office, going to restaurants or even festivals. This can only happen if citizens with a corona passport can show that they have recently been vaccinated or tested negative.
Some European countries want to have a corona passport introduced before the summer, so that the economy can open again. Denmark is one of them as they are getting a better grip on the number of covid-19 infections. Their Prime Minister mentioned that more measures are needed to prevent new lockdowns and a corona passport should provide a solution. She also mentioned that all Danes should have themselves tested ‘a few times a week’, especially if they want to return to the workplace.
Employers may not require their employees to provide access to sensitive medical data. An employee must give explicit permission for this but an urgent request may not lead to protest among staff. In many countries citizens are getting used to get tested. In care homes and hospitals it has often already been the rule for some time that you must be tested before you can visit.
Many companies are looking to develop a vaccination passport
A Danish company with a subsidiary in the Netherlands is focusing on a new development: a corona passport. They want to develop a digital corona passport that can be used for business travel, among other things. The idea is that the app will collect data from the National health authority and check whether the citizen has been vaccinated, has antibodies or has recently been tested negative for the corona virus. The status is converted into a QR code, which can be scanned at the airport, in restaurants or at festivals.
It will be a race against time as many companies want to have a slice of the market but requirements that such an app with sensitive medical data must meet are not yet known. Such a passport will probably lead to a public debate about privacy and medical data but the digitization of this type of data has been going on for a long time and people are getting more used to it.
Opening up the economy
A Danish employers’ organization has been hitting a solid reopening plan for Denmark for some time. Intensive testing and a corona passport would be an essential part of this.
Large American companies such as IBM, Microsoft Oracle, IBM and Salesforce have been months ahead of the growing demand for the online corona status of citizens. International solutions, such as the Vaccination Credential Initiative, are also in the works. However, waiting for the European Union or World Health Organization to come up with a European or international passport is not an option for the Danish employers’ organization’s spokesperson. It can take a very long time and the economies need it now. A Digital Corona passport could be introduced per nation first and then rolled out to more countries after a proven track record and hopefully all in place by this summer.
How TCP can help
We have registered entities in all the countries where we operate and can support work visa applications as well as act as the employer of record and manage the payroll according to local legislation, allowing TCP to manage the risks involved and indemnify our clients.
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