Member states have moved a step forward by agreeing on the main technical specifications for the plans. The Digital Green certificates are intended to facilitate free movement during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing proof that a person has either been vaccinated, received a negative test result, or recovered from the virus.
Member state representatives in the eHealth Network, a voluntary network connecting national authorities, have agreed on guidelines describing the main technical specifications for the implementation of the system. The guidelines cover data structure and encoding mechanisms, including the QR code, which will ensure that both digital and paper certificates can be verified across the EU.
They also describe the EU gateway set up by the European Commission to allow sharing of electronic signature keys so the authenticity of Digital Green Certificates can be verified. No personal data of certificate holders will pass through the gateway, as this is not necessary for verification.
Finally, the guidelines describe reference implementations for software to issue Digital Green Certificates; a reference app to verify certificates, and a template for a wallet app for citizens to store them. Reference implementations will be open source and available by mid-May.
The next step on the technical side is the set-up of national infrastructure, the roll-out of national solutions for issuing, verifying, and storing Digital Green Certificates, and the set-up of the EU gateway. After a piloting phase in May, the EU gateway should be ready in June for member states to connect.
In order for the Digital Green Certificates to be rolled out by June, the technical implementation has to advance in parallel to the legislative process. This is a crucial step for the establishment of the necessary infrastructure at the EU level.
Meanwhile, in the UK, transport secretary Grant Shapps announced the NHS app will be used to demonstrate whether British citizens have had the COVID vaccine, or tested negative for the virus, before traveling abroad. Shapps said he was “working internationally with partners across the world to make sure that system can be internationally recognised.”