Are Digital Vaccine Passports the Future of Travel?
Picture this: Your plane lands on the tarmac after a long, international flight. You disembark, and head to customs. When it’s your turn to speak to a customs official, you fish out your passport — and your phone.
Our phones are likely to be more important than ever as international travel ramps back up, because they’ll be the most secure way to provide border officials with proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
In fact, things are already trending in that direction.
Earlier this month, a Qatar Airlines flight from Doha to Istanbul tested a new digital passport that allowed travelers to show proof of vaccination on their phones.
“What it will do is give people and the authorities confidence that your documentation is correct that you have been vaccinated,” Qatar Airways Group CEO Akbar Al Baker told NBC. “You don’t have to carry pieces of paper around, which you could lose.”
The European Commission is also considering a similar strategy. According to an official press release, the Commission’s proposed Digital Green Certificate “will be a proof that a person has been vaccinated against COVID-19, received a negative test result or recovered from COVID-19” and will allow the owner to travel throughout the European Union.
We could soon see similar strategies enacted on North American soil, too.
In Canada, several provinces are considering giving vaccinated travelers a digital receipt that would allow them to travel to select destinations more easily. Similar initiatives are underway in the United States as well.
The bottom line? Your phone could be the ticket to your next big trip.
