ID2020 and Panta Group are proud to announce the launch of the Good Health Pass Collaborative along with leading individual companies and organizations in the technology, health, and travel sectors – including the Airports Council International (ACI), Commons Project Foundation, COVID-19 Credentials Initiative (CCI), Evernym, Hyperledger, IBM, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Linux Foundation Public Health, Lumedic, Mastercard, Trust Over IP Foundation, and others (visit goodhealthpass.org for a complete list).
The Good Health Pass Collaborative is an open, inclusive, cross-sector initiative to create a blueprint for interoperable digital health pass systems that will help restore global travel and restart the global economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every segment of the global economy, but none as profoundly as travel and tourism. Last year, airlines lost an estimated $118.5 billion USD with related impacts across the economy in excess of $2 trillion USD.
In conjunction with the announcement, the Collaborative also released its first white paper, entitled, Good Health Pass: A Safe Path to Global Reopening.
Collaboration Among a New Ecosystem of Players
“There’s one thing the world agrees on – we need to address the health concerns today to support a return to normalcy,” said Ajay Bhalla, President of Cyber & Intelligence at Mastercard. “Delivering a global, interoperable health pass system can only happen if we come together in a way that meets the needs of everyone involved. This Collaborative will be critical in helping to define how we connect the pieces that will bring travel back safely, spark job creation and jumpstart the world’s economic engine.”
Various efforts are currently underway to develop digital health credentials systems – both vaccination and test certificates – for international travel. Yet, despite this race to market, it is unlikely that a single solution will be implemented universally – or even across the entire travel industry. Thus, it is critical that solutions are designed from the onset to be interoperable – both with one another and across institutional and geographic borders.
The Good Health Pass Collaborative is not intended to supplant existing efforts but rather to help weave them together, fill gaps where they may exist, and facilitate collaboration among a new ecosystem of stakeholders, many of whom have never worked together before.
“Fragmentation is a risk we simply cannot ignore,” said ID2020 Executive Director Dakota Gruener. “To be valuable to users, credentials need to be accepted at check-in, upon arrival by border control agencies, and more. We can get there – even with multiple systems – as long as solutions adhere to open standards and participate in a common governance framework. But without these, fragmentation is inevitable, and travelers – and the economy – will continue to suffer needlessly as a result.”
Global Travel & Digital Health Credentials
COVID-19 test results are already required for entry at some airports and at international borders. But existing paper-based certificates are easy to lose, unnecessarily expose sensitive personal information, and are prone to fraud and counterfeiting.
By contrast, digital health credentials can be printed (e.g., as a QR code) or stored on an individual’s mobile phone. They enhance user privacy and “bind” an individual’s identity to their test result or vaccination certificate, thus enabling real-time, fraud- resistant digital verification.
“Our health data consists of the most sensitive personal information, deserving of the strongest privacy,” said Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Executive Director of the Global Privacy & Security By Design Centre. “Release of our health data must be under our personal control. The Good Health Pass does just that: With Privacy by Design embedded throughout, you control the release of your digital health data, and to whom; all de-identified and decentralized, Privacy and functionality: Win/Win!”
The World Health Organization recently convened the Smart Vaccination Certificate Consortium to establish standards for vaccination certificates, but no analogous effort currently exists for test certificates. Given that it is expected to take years for vaccines to be universally available globally, widespread testing will remain an essential public health tool – and one that must continue alongside vaccination to ensure a safe and equitable return to public life.
About ID2020
ID2020 is a global public-private partnership that harnesses the collective power of nonprofits, corporations, and governments to promote the adoption and ethical implementation of user-managed, privacy-protecting, and portable digital identity solutions.
By developing and applying rigorous technical standards to certify identity solutions, providing advisory services and implementing programs, and advocating for the ethical implantation of digital ID, ID2020 is strengthening social and economic development globally.
ID2020 Alliance partners are committed to a future in which all of the world’s seven billion people can fully exercise their basic human rights and reap the benefits of economic empowerment and to protecting user privacy, and ensuring that data is not commoditized. www.ID2020.org
About the Panta Group
Panta is a start-up, founded in 2016 and is based in Sydney, Australia. Panta is dedicated to developing digital and sustainable solutions for public transportation in developing countries. Panta is currently releasing a digital ticketing and contactless payment system across the Philippines and is also aiming to create digital contact tracing and national ID systems in the Philippines.
About Mastercard
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships, and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
About the Privacy by Design Centre of Excellence
The Privacy by Design Centre of Excellence is intended to serve as the Gold Standard for privacy and data protection. It rests on advancing the need to take proactive measures to embed privacy and security into all operations – both systems-related and policy/legal matters. By identifying the risks, we can avoid them through the implementation of the 7 Foundational Principles of Privacy by Design – we can largely prevent the privacy harms from arising. PbD offers a system of prevention, much like a medical model of prevention, attempting to prevent privacy infractions and data breaches from arising, thereby enhancing the protection of the data, right from the outset. Surveillance is the antithesis of privacy. Privacy by Design makes every effort to eradicate government surveillance, which remains largely invisible. The International Foundation for Global Privacy and Security, by Design, extends PbD to ensure the use of positive-sum models and the avoidance of zero-sum.