Digital “passport of health” in 2021
The digital passport is a unique software that will increase the level of individual and corporate trust in the course of business relations during the period of exit from quarantine restrictions. The goal of the digital “health passport” is to reduce the fear and panic of illness, to encourage people around the world to return to normal life despite the pandemic.
At the moment, such a software shell with various levels of functionality is being tested in Switzerland, Estonia and Israel. What these developments have in common is that they do not collect and track contacts and patients via Bluetooth or DMP-bases of Wi-Fi points, as control programs. All these solutions allow authorized persons (infectious disease doctors) to enter information on the results of prevention, diagnosis and testing of a person for any infectious diseases (including coronavirus) into the mobile application. After that, the application will generate a unique QR code with the result data. The user can, on his own initiative, share this code with the employer, representatives of service providers, administrative authorities or even with his relatives.
Such applications meet all standards for the protection of personal data and comply with the legislation in this area. However, the application only collects anonymous data, and its use will be entirely voluntary. At the same time, the Council of Europe expressed their comments on the use of such software and noted that these measures should be clearly limited in time.
The greatest interest in the digital health passport and the conditions for its use in 2021 is shown by global corporations from those industries that have been most affected by the coronavirus pandemic: passenger transportation and tourism, organization of events and concerts. Thanks to the digital passport, it will be possible to issue biometric identity cards to those travelers who are not infected with the virus or have immunity, which will allow them to freely enter airport terminals and quickly check in for the flight.
The application will be linked to the medical database of the issuing country, which, in encrypted form, will provide up-to-date information about the Covid-19 “profile”.
The issuance of digital health passports will be monitored by the country’s ministry of health in collaboration with local health care providers and hospitals.
Currently, in many countries, hospitals and national health facilities are not connected with each other, and hospitalization occurs without a medical history and vaccination of the patient. Therefore, the next step is expected to be the transformation of such a “passport” into a fully digital medical profile that will be available to healthcare professionals around the world, including emergency workers.
