Finance Minister Morten Boedskov informed a news conference that “in three, 4 months, a digital corona passport will be ready for use in, for example, business travel.”
“It’s absolutely essential for us to be able to restart Danish society so that companies can get back on track. Many Danish companies are global companies with the whole world as a market,” he added.
As a first step, earlier than the end of February, residents in Denmark would be able to see on a Danish health web site the official confirmation of whether they have been vaccinated.
“It will be the extra passport that you will be able to have in your mobile phone that documents that you have been vaccinated,” Boedskov stated. “We will be among the first in the world to have it and can show it to the rest of the world.”
The coronavirus has seen a near-total halt in international travel as nations attempt to contain the spread of the virus. Major European airways, for example, are flying a tenth of their normal traffic.
The Danish government’s presentation was made together with representatives of the main business organizations, the Confederation of Danish Industries, which represents Denmark’s major companies, and the Danish Chamber of Commerce.
Denmark, like neighboring Nordic and Baltic nations, has in recent times moved toward a totally digital system to scale back bureaucracy with online platforms that assist electronic authentication and digital signatures to enable paperless communications throughout both the private and public sectors.
The European Commission, meanwhile, has been weighing proposals to issue vaccination certificates to assist get travelers to their vacation destinations more rapidly and avoid another disastrous summer for Europe’s tourism sector. However, the EU’s government arm stated, for now, such certificates would only be used for medical purposes, for instance, to monitor the possible adverse effects of vaccines.
Some similar digital passports are being developed to assist travelers to securely show they’ve complied with COVID-19 testing requirements. One, called CommonPass, says it might also track vaccinations.
On Tuesday, Estonia stated it should permit passengers arriving into the nation with proof of COVID-19 vaccination to avoid quarantine requirements.
The Danish government stated it will decide later on whether the digital passport should be used for purposes other than travel to help reopen public life.
