Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates (DDCC) is not a policy document but the guidance on technical specifications. Countries are responsible for choosing modalities and service solutions to implement the certificates, considering that a policy must be in place to support both the issuance and use. DDCC are not identity documents and countries must determine whether they want to have identity binding in the certificates. Furthermore, countries must ensure that the trust frameworks for validation of COVID-19 certificates with other countries exist. DDCC documents set the foundation to support the internationally recognized patient summary and could be expanded for other documents, like children’s immunization or personal health records.

IATA Travel Pass is a digital system designed by IATA to address the extended processing time and lack of verification. It is an authenticated and accurate system that only accept COVID-19 information from trusted labs. Moreover, the system is decentralized and allows passengers to control their own data and was designed with data privacy in mind.

The Commons Project Foundation and its digital platform products, specifically the SMART Health Cards, is a digital platform developed for sharing health data, which has been adopted by major US health organizations, several countries and major mobile phone companies as their default platform. CommonCheck is designed for the Governments to identify health status of incoming travelers and is used not only for entering the country but also for domestic use in that country.

CommonCheck supports the verification of several credential types and will help the Governments to check traveller vaccination certificates and test results against the rules set by that country. The verification process needs to be implemented by the government as part of its border management process, and that will allow the airlines and domestic verifications and many other solutions to follow.

EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate is a framework that accepts three types of interoperable certificate (e.g., vaccination, test, and recovery). Unlike other passes, the EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate is not created for border management but provides similar authentication to the IATA Travel Pass and is implemented by Member States, which makes it quite versatile. The core competencies of the EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate includes data protection, privacy, transparency, and flexibility.

Identity Management is about linking a person to a token (e.g. ID Card, QR Code, Smart Phone), with which he proves his identity. This linkage is typically done by using biometric. Vaccination certificates do not include biometric data. After so many months of vaccinations and tests, the issuance of certificates has become a standardized process and it is time to think about improving its security level. One way, which the EU went, was to introduce cryptography and a digital signature. Once verified, it raises the assurance that the certificate was issued by an eligible authority. The other way is to introduce biometrics in a QR code, readable with the same device as the certificate. Biometrics have to be compressed but are still good enough to enable a visual control.

Introduction of the international cooperation team of Immigration Control Experts and its role. The importance of the close cooperation with the host authorities will be explained with an emphasis on the importance of sharing information. The team will share its view on the document check as well as how to deal with fraud.

As States rolled out COVID-19 vaccination and testing programs, they were faced with an urgent need to issue appropriate health credentials. Given the urgency of the situation, with such credentials often being cornerstones of domestic policy, they moved to issue any of a variety of formats often designed for national or regional purposes. Authentication of this diversity of credentials during cross-border travel - an important use case as international travel resumes - is a great challenge.

In this presentation, you will hear about the ICAO Health Master List, the first initiative of its kind to support international authentication of digital health proofs. ICAO will explain how the Master List, as a flexible, open and truly global resource aligned with WHO guidance on health proofs, is driving international travel recovery. Additionally, some perspectives around future incorporation of health data in travel processes will be put forward.