For some it represents an opportunity to coordinate health systems e deal with a possible future pandemic in a better way. For others (no green pass, no vax and deniers in general) a new one control system to prevent people to move freely. The fact is that the European Commission e the World Health Organisation have signed a digital health partnership, which aims to make the Green Pass, or EU Digital Covid Certificatelo international standards to facilitate mobility around the world. For example, it could replace the current international certificate of vaccinationstill in paper form.
Green pass
What is the digital certificate
The Covid digital certificate was created by the EU to overcome the Babel of national certificates on Covid-19 and thus facilitate mobility within the Union, seriously compromised in the years of the pandemic; some governments, for example in Italy, then also used it for internal purposesbut the instrument was created above all to overcome the problem of the lack of cross-border recognition of tests, which made travel within the Union very difficult in times of pandemic.
Since it will be adopted by WHO
In the current month of June, informs the Commission, WHO to adopt EU Covid-19 digital certification scheme to set up a system that will “help to facilitate global mobility and to protect citizens around the world from current and future health threats“.
The target
It is, the Commission specifies, the first building block from the WHO digital health certification global networkwhich will develop a wide range of digital products.
The partnership will include a close development collaborationin the management and implementation of the WHO system, benefiting from the technical expertise accumulated by the European Commission in the field.
A first step is to ensure that current EU digital certificates continue to function effectively. The digital Covid certificate, or Green Passbased on open-source technologies and standards, has also allowed the connection of non-EU countries that issue certificates according to EU specifications: today it is already the most used solution in the world.
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The pandemic
Since the beginning of the pandemic, WHO has worked to establish general guidelines for these certificates. To “strengthen global health preparedness in the face of growing health threats,” WHO is establishing an international digital health certification network that builds on the EU’s open framework and technologies.
With this collaboration, WHO will facilitate this process globally, with the aim of enabling the world to benefit from the convergence of digital certificates, which includes the setting of standards and the validation of digital signatures, to prevent fraud.
privacy
WHO will not have access to any underlying personal data: these will continue to be the exclusive domain of governments. The first building block of WHO’s global system becomes operational this month and is expected to be progressively developed over the coming months.
La partnership Ue-Oms will work to technically develop the system in a phased approach to cover further use cases, which may include, for example, the digitization of the international certificate of vaccination or prophylaxis.