Airlines and other travel companies, as well as health authorities are getting increasingly worried about the volume of false Covid test and vaccine documents that are turning up and are calling for quick action.
With more and more countries imposing testing routines for travel and discussing possible vaccine requirements, and some cruise lines requiring vaccination for all passengers, the potential for serious damage by infected passengers with fake documents is considerable.
The International Air Transport Association has called on governments to work with developers of apps that would use government testing and vaccination data to link with travelers for an official digital certification, or ‘passport’ as a way to avoid the problem of easily-faked paper documents. IATA has been behind the development of one of those apps, Travel Pass.
Aside from the concern for passenger and crew health, the industry also worries that if fraud becomes widespread, it could cause governments to hold back from opening borders and travel. IATA says that governments “need to be confident that they are mitigating the risk of importing Covid-19 and have confidence in a passenger’s verified Covid-19 status.”
