The Green Pass, the document that will allow you to travel to Europe in this second summer with the coronavirus pandemic, is connected to a simple paper sheet to be assessed on sight, but soon (in the intentions of the government, as early as June 1st) it will be a certificate connected to a technological infrastructure for remote verification, in any country of the European Union. It can be printed or digital, but still with a Qr Code that the police (or other authorized subjects) will be able to read with an app to verify its validity, as revealed by the government to the Regions before these details end up in a decree law.
It is not over, because this system will have two important evolutions already from July. The first will be a dialogue with the European infrastructure (via a gateway), possible because the Italian Green Pass already adopts the technological standards envisaged by Ehn, the European Health network; this connection allows the verification of the Italian Green Pass in any EU country (and vice versa that of other European citizens visiting Italy).
“The second novelty will be the possibility of keeping the Green Pass not on a separate sheet (paper or digital that is, ed) but integrated into an app, which according to the government slides could be Immune or IO. Or both, ”explained Massimo Mangia, one of the historic digital health experts in Italy, long-time president of Federsanità and founder of the startup Alkimiya.
The first two stages of the Green Pass
Three phases, therefore, for this tool that should make life easier for those who want to travel and respect one of the three requirements that serve to obtain it: be vaccinated, cured of Covid-19 or with a swab that certifies the absence of the virus (here the different validity times for these conditions).
“Now we are in the pre-technological phase: the Green Pass is not even something precise because it is equivalent to being able to demonstrate compliance with one of the three conditions – Mangia explained to us – combined with as many different paper documents, easily falsifiable, although this is a severely punished crime “.
The turning point will be in phase two: “Sogei (State technology company, ed.) is preparing a platform that will manage everything on a national basis. Here will arrive various data flows, that of vaccination certificates for the national vaccination register, that of diagnostic tests and that of healing certificates, all managed through the health card “. Sogei will digitally sign these data to avoid counterfeiting. When someone shows up with a certificate (of test, recovery or vaccination), the verifier will be able to “read” it with an app (also under development by Sogei) through the QR Code. The app will check if that information on the certificate is true, comparing it with the corresponding data on the Sogei platform.
It will be possible to obtain the certificate from a health facility, such as a pharmacy, general practitioner, diagnostic laboratories, Asl, vaccination centers and so on, but also can download it from your health file or from a site that Sogei is always developing, using the tax code and health card number.
From July, thanks to regulation coming soon, there will be dialogue with the European infrastructure: the data will remain in the country of origin of the controlled person and not in that of the country visited.
La fase 3 del Green Pass
The third phase should increase the convenience of everything in Italy with an integration of the document on the IO or Immuni apps: it means that it will be enough to enter these apps, perhaps already installed, to find your Green Pass. At least: this is one of the hypotheses presented by the government to the Regions, because the modification of the apps and the relative comparison with the Privacy Guarantor will take time.
According to Mangia, “timing is a challenge in general, already in the second phase ”: as is well known, the Privacy Guarantor gave a first stop to the Italian Green Pass and started a heated conversation with the government.
“We have requested that the Green Pass not display the detailed data, that is, if the person was vaccinated and where, or where he had the swab, or when he recovered ”, explained Guido Scorza, who works for the Guarantor; the reason is the universal principle of data minimization: “The verifier does not need to know these details, only that the certificate is valid”.
According to Mangia, however, “it must also be said that it is standard europeo provides these details, in view of a possible differentiation of use. For example, a state could decide to give more freedom of action to those who have the Green Pass when vaccinated or cured and give less to those who have only had a negative swab for less than 48 hours, because this criterion offers less reliability ”.
All the details on how the Green Pass could be used (as well as to travel, that is) are waiting to be clarified in future regulatory interventions, which are already being studied.
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