With vaccines now being administered in a growing number of countries, travellers are hoping digital health verification will allow them to travel more easily. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is currently developing a Travel Pass framework to address this issue.
Singapore has already begun their vaccination programme and Singapore Airlines has started trials on digital verification of Covid-19 Test Results. These trials, the first worldwide, are based on the IATA Travel Pass framework and have been offered to passengers on selected flights since 23rd December 2020.
Digital health verification
The digital health verification allows customers to securely store and present information related to Covid-19 tests on a downloadable app. This will be expanded to include their vaccination status in the future. It is currently available for passengers travelling on Singapore Airlines Group flights from Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. If successful, this will be extended to other cities in the SIA route network.
How it works
- Customers will take Covid-19 tests at selected clinics in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur
- Results provided as digital or paper health certificates with a QR code.
Airport check-in staff and Singapore’s immigration authority will verify the authenticity of these certificates via a secure mobile app, to ensure that the customers meet Singapore’s entry requirements.
- Customers without a digital certificate can present the paper version for manual verification.
The benefits include:
- Faster and more secure method to validate a passenger’s health credentials than existing protocols
- Speeds up both the airport check-in process and the immigration entry process into Singapore
- Easier for SIA customers to
- control their information
- reduce friction during their travel journey
- enjoy a more seamless experience using digital technologies
Security
IATA’s Timatic registry provides the back-end information on the Covid-19 testing and entry requirements. This is part of the modular Travel Pass solution, allowing travellers to easily and securely manage their travel in line with national requirements for Covid-19 testing and vaccine information. Phase two trials start 15th March 2021.
Plans are in place for Singapore Airlines to integrate the entire process into the SingaporeAir mobile app from around mid-2021 using the Travel Pass framework. This supports the drive towards a secure and convenient industry standard for the verification of Covid-19 test and vaccinations.
The verification is enabled by an application developed by Affinidi, a Temasek-founded technology company enabling portable and verifiable data credentials.
For a full list of clinics which currently issue digitally-verifiable health certificates, please click here.
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