Digital Green Certificates will be valid in all EU Member States
EU proposed Digital Green Certificates. Source: unsplash.com
The European Commission presented a proposal to create a Digital Green Certificate on 17 March 2021. The certificate is expected to facilitate the safe free movement of citizens within the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Digital Green Certificate is digital proof that a person has either been vaccinated, received a negative test result, or recovered from COVID-19.
According to the report, national authorities are in charge of issuing the certificate. This way, it could be issued by hospitals, test centers, or health authorities.
The Digital Green Certificate will have two versions – digital and paper. The digital version can be stored on a mobile device. Citizens can also request a paper version. Both will have a QR code that contains essential data and a digital seal to make sure the certificate is authentic.
It will contain necessary key information such as name, date of birth, date of issuance, relevant information about vaccine/ test/recovery, and a unique identifier.
How will the Green Certificate work?
- The Digital Green Certificate contains a QR code with a digital signature to protect it against falsification.
- When the certificate is checked, the QR code is scanned and the signature verified.
- Each issuing body (e.g. a hospital, a test center, a health authority) has its own digital signature key. All of these are stored in a secure database in each country.
- The European Commission will build a gateway. Through this gateway, all certificate signatures can be verified across the EU. The personal data encoded in the certificate does not pass through the gateway, as this is not necessary to verify the digital signature. The Commission will also help Member States to develop software that authorities can use to check the QR codes.
Along with that, the European Commission unveiled that these vaccination certificates will be issued to a vaccinated person for any COVID-19 vaccine.
We’ve reported that two Nordic countries will issue digital vaccine certificates.
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