Covid-19 Vaccine Certificate Qr Code Available To Download [TOP]
Letizia Aderson
Ontario is making enhanced COVID-19 vaccine certificates with QR codes available for download beginning over the next three days, starting Friday morning with those born between January and April before expanding to more residents.
At a briefing for media Friday, officials said the purpose of the QR code system is to make vaccination status screening more efficient for businesses and more secure for the public. Roughly 83 per cent of those eligible in the province have now had two doses of vaccine.
Officials said the QR codes will reveal less personal information than the current vaccine receipts do. The codes include a person's name, date of birth and whether they have received two doses of vaccine, with their last shot at least 14 days prior.
It does not contain which brand or brands of vaccine a person received, or the specific dates of their shots. That information is included on the broader enhanced certificate itself, but is not transmitted through the QR codes, officials said.
The code used to create the app is open source, meaning it is freely available for others to use and has been posted online. It works on Apple and Android devices that were produced in about 2014 and after.
Verify Ontario went live online yesterday, rolling out in the Apple and Google app stores. After the code is scanned, a green checkmark will appear indicating a valid vaccine certificate, an X against a red background for an invalid certificate or a yellow warning for a QR that cannot be read.
Those hoping to enter a business impacted by the province's vaccine requirements will also need to show an approved form of physical identification that matches the name and date of birth in the QR code.
The province is working to include valid medical exemptions to COVID-19 vaccines in the codes, but officials couldn't say when that feature may be rolled out. It will include having proof of medical exemptions verified by local public health units, Health Minister Christine Elliott said at the news conference.
On September 1, 2021, the Ontario government announced that starting September 22, Ontarians will need to be fully vaccinated (two doses plus 14 days) and provide proof of vaccination along with photo ID to access certain public settings and facilities. By October 22, Ontario plans to develop and implement an enhanced digital vaccine certificate with unique QR (Quick Response) code that will verify vaccination status when scanned. A paper version of the certificate will be available for download or can be printed from the COVID-19 vaccination provincial portal.
Organizations that are not included in the list of settings but wish to mandate vaccines are encouraged to use the provincial proof of vaccine certificate with the written documentation showing medical inability to receive the vaccine as their way of meeting the duty to accommodate where needed.
The OHRC also stresses the need to make sure digital proof of vaccine certificates are designed to be fully accessible to adaptive technology, including for smart phone users with disabilities, in accordance with Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act regulations.
Regarding the vaccination certificate, it is limited to vaccines authorized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and reports the vaccine product, manufacturer, number of doses performed, and the date(s) of vaccine inoculation. For the SARS-CoV-2 negative test certificate, the type of test, date and time, the center which performed the test, and the result are included. Accepted tests are NAAT tests (including RT-PCR tests) and rapid antigen tests, named in the list established by the Council Recommendation 2021/C 24/01. Self-tests are not included as they are not performed under controlled conditions5. Digital Covid-19 Certificates holders can enter European countries without restrictions, even if their certificate contains proof of recovery from Covid-19 infection. For this certificate, the date of positive test results, the certificate issuer, the date of issue, and the date of validity are reported.
The DCC format is the same for all European countries, but the rules imposed by each member state to allow the entry are different. For instance, it is up to the single member state the choice of admitting vaccination certificates concerning vaccines not authorized by the EMA. A central EU gateway, an information technology service through which the DCC signatures are controlled across the member states, has been created but certificate information cannot be retained by the countries of destination. Personal data is stored in the member state that issued the DCC. Each member state has been supported by the EU during the national software and app development phases for issuing, archiving, and verifying certificates as well as during the test phase, which is necessary for gateway integration.
In Australia8,9, people who have received both the doses of the approved vaccines (Vaxzevira by AstraZeneca or Comirnaty by Pfizer-BioNTech), can access the digital proof of their full vaccination. This is automatically9 generated and available on the Express Plus Medicare App or the myGov website (even for those who opted out of My Health Record, since the Australian Immunization Register is a separate database). Those experiencing issues can require an immunization history statement from a vaccine provider or the Australian Immunization Register. Currently, this certificate doesn't allow holders to avoid travel or domestic restrictions and only serves as evidence of vaccination status.
Israel10, which has been looked at for a long time as the country with the best vaccine rollout model, issued a Ministry of Health-approved DCC. Anyone who was vaccinated or recovered from Covid-19 was eligible for receiving it. For people aged 16 or younger or those having contraindications to the Covid-19 vaccine (i.e., unvaccinated and not planning to be vaccinated), the DCC was available for 72 h after having tested negative for SARS-CoV-2. This certificate was considered a solution to last until the end of 2020, but on June 1st, 2021, Israel retired its DCC system and now allows access to activities such as attendance at sports events, restaurants, and more to both vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens alike.
In terms of the first point, the reliability of vaccine, recovery, and test certificates is greatly variable among countries around the globe. It depends on authorized vaccines and diagnostic tests, and on bodies or professionals issuing recovery, vaccination, or test certificates. Despite the effort to create a homogeneous and egalitarian European DCC, different approaches still emerge from EU member states. Even when the type of authorized vaccines and/or the list of admitted rapid tests are the same for all the EU countries, the timing of vaccination and the validity of the starting and expiration time of test and recovery certificates differ from EU country to EU country. As examples, France currently requires 4 weeks from the second dose of vaccines to enter in the country while Austria and Czech Republic require 3 weeks from the first dose with 3 months of validity. In terms of the duration of the recovery certificate, most of the EU member states recognize 6 months of validity while Greece and Italy allow 9 months. Concerning the negative diagnostic test results, in general, rapid antigenic test are admitted (48 h) by EU countries while the Netherlands only accepts molecular tests. Regarding the governance of the DCC issuing and verification processes, most EU countries have the Ministry of Health as the public authority responsible for these activities. Further, the process to ensure a trust architecture to make possible that a DCC from Non-EU countries are verified in a common way, is still ongoing. Business rules for validation purposes should be the logical conditions used to assess the conformance of each certificate to the requirements of each country. However, the lack of harmonisation of verification rules is leading to different results for the same certificate, depending on the European member states' app verifying non-EU country DCCs. Digital Covid-19 Certificates from Non-EU countries accepted by the DCC European gateway are not automatically paired with DCC from EU member states accepted by non-EU countries involved.
Regarding the issue around information included in the DCC, privacy, and security issues remain core to the current discussion on the DCC. A universally accepted DCC has not been developed, for instance, in the United States of America since the requirements to show the proof of vaccination could violate privacy laws. On the other hand, the paper cards that can be used to verify an individual's vaccination status, as approved by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), does not present a unique identifier or marker, such as the QR code used in Europe, making them prime targets for forgery14. Further, ethical problems are possibly exacerbating inequality in those countries where a universal health coverage is not conceived as part of the healthcare system. An immunity passport implicitly puts economic, social, and civil limitations on those who cannot obtain it (i.e., poor population groups that don't have the possibility to access vaccination and testing). A perverse incentive that may arise in those excluded from their country's workforce could be to actively seek infection in order to procure a Covid-19 certificate, potentially exposing others to health risks15.
If you have chosen to have the COVID-19 vaccination, certain data about that vaccination is held by Manx Care as part of your health records. This includes the dates on which you had your vaccinations as well as the type of vaccine that was used. Further privacy information in relation to Manx Care is available at the Manx Care Privacy Notice page.
Your COVID-19 vaccination data includes your NHS number, your name, your date of birth, your gender, your post code and the dates of your COVID-19 vaccinations as well as technical information about the type of vaccine you had. This information will be processed by NHS Digital to produce the electronic vaccination certificate (viewable on the NHS app).
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