Germany introduces vaccine passports. In a record time of 5 days, the German government has selected two companies to develop a new document under the “no tender procedure” – informs “Spiegel” . The order is worth EUR 2.7 million. The German Ministry of Health has announced that digital vaccination certificates will be available nationwide within 8 weeks.
A large concern is that a start-up from Cologne will be responsible for the development of German vaccine passports
Ubrich and IBM are two of the 29 companies selected to fulfil the government’s order for vaccine passports. We wrote about vaccination certificates being introduced HERE. As “Spiegel” has learned from Urbich, digital vaccination certificates are created as follows: every person vaccinated against the coronavirus in Germany receives a QR code at a vaccination centre or GP – on a plastic card, on a piece of paper, by e-mail or in an app.
Germany vaccine passports, how do they work?
This code contains the patient’s personal data, details of the date of vaccination, the type of preparation received and a random number.
When reading the QR code, e.g. when crossing the border or during an access control to an event, the inspector sees the surname, first name, date of birth and ID number (as well as information on vaccination) and can, if necessary, compare them with the presented identity document. In the background, the system only asks for verification whether there is already an entry matching the QR code in the blockchain. In this way, personal data and vaccination data are not stored centrally in the system, which guarantees their security.
READ MORE: Germany: Digital vaccination certificates are coming
So far, Ubirch has only been used in two places in Germany: in Altötting in Upper Bavaria and in the district of Zollernalb in Baden-Württemberg. The Ministry of Health has announced that digital vaccination certificates should be ready within eight weeks and available nationwide.
The vaccine passport is to facilitate travel, as well as admission to mass events, such as concerts. Although the European Commission plans to introduce a “digital green passport” in all countries of the community, this idea has met with criticism from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The draft of the European Commission bill on the new document is to be presented on March 17.
Israel has already introduced the digital vaccination certificate. In China, vaccination certificates and test results are available online from WeChat this week.
Source: Spiegel.de , PolskiObserwator.de