Global Health Pass Apps Developed to Help Re-Open Borders

15th December 2020

As part of Global Marine Travel’s (GMT) regular updates to our clients, we have been following multiple conversations regarding the developments of some of the very first Global Health Pass apps to help reopen businesses and restore the global economy.

Among all the tools that health agencies have developed over the decades to fight epidemics, at least one has remained a constant: vaccination certificates. Now, these digital health passes and vaccination certificates will likely become a permanent part of our travel lives.

The below information best summarizes the major companies that are leading the way with Global Health Pass apps to ensure people begin safely traveling again which we encourage you to read about. GMT will be providing regular updates on these new travel technologies as they develop.

CommonPass

Launched by the World Economic Forum and The Commons Project Foundation, a new app called CommonPass has the power to open up international travel.

With the free app, travelers are able to safely and securely enter their test results from a certified lab to their smartphones and complete any required health screening questions to generate a verified quick response code that airline staff and border officials can scan.

In order to further border reopenings, there are a few things the launch team at CommonPass is requiring:

1. Countries will need to publish updated health screening entry criteria using a standard format on a common framework
2. Register trusted facilities conducting COVID-19 lab tests for foreign travel and administering vaccines in the CommonPass registry

“Safe border reopening will not be possible without mutual trust and recognition between countries of testing results and vaccine records,” said Lauren Uppink Calderwood, head of aviation, travel and tourism at the World Economic Forum. “The CommonPass framework enables this layer of trust while reducing potential fraud and ensuring the privacy of user data.”

CommonPass has now successfully debuted on flights with Cathay Pacific and, most recently, United Airlines, on a flight from London Heathrow to Newark Liberty International Airport. In December 2020, CommonPass plans to launch routes across Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.

CommonPass is currently in the pilot phase and is anticipated to scale up early next year. Click here to be notified when it is publicly available.

IATA Travel Pass

Rather than competing with other apps, The International Air Transport Association (IATA), a highly trusted industry body, is developing a universal Travel Pass app in an effort to further open up the international travel market during the pandemic.

The IATA Travel Pass is slated to launch early 2021 and will enable healthcare providers to securely upload Covid test results and vaccination certificates to a users’ account while binding those documents to a traveler’s identity to prevent misuse. When transiting, travelers can perform a simple app click or generate a QR code that would then be scanned by airport authorities.

Travel Pass will make use of blockchain technology so that testing centers can share documents directly with users. The identity verification feature of the app, which also manages the test and vaccination certificates, will be powered by IATA One ID technology and customer data will not be stored. Because it is based on open source standards, it can be used in combination with other providers or as an end-to-end solution.

In summary, it goes without saying that when nobody is flying, nobody is winning.  The first key is to establish confidence in governments that systematic pre-departure COVID-19 testing can work as a replacement for quarantine requirements. The second is the global information infrastructure needed to securely manage, share and verify test data matched with traveler identities in compliance with border control requirements.

It is both Global Marine Travel and the entire travel industry’s hope that these new digital health pass technology platforms will ultimately support the “safe reopening” of our international borders.

If you have further questions about the above Global Health Pass apps or need to make a booking, please contact any of our dedicated GMT travel agents.