Denmark is hoping for a Covid-19 vaccination passport

(CNN) – Like many countries around the world, Denmark is desperate to find the parts of its economy frozen by the pandemic.

The kingdom of fewer than six million people has become one of the most efficient distributors of vaccines in Europe and aims to have a shot to the entire population by June.

Morten Bødskov, Denmark’s acting finance minister, stated last week the prospect of the introduction of a so-called coronavirus passport by the end of the month.

“Denmark is still hard hit by the corona pandemic,” he said. “But there are parts of Danish society that need to move forward, and a business community needs to be able to travel.”

The government has since indicated that a February deadline may be ambitious, but the relatively small Scandinavian country could still become the world’s first country to formally embrace the technology to open its borders in this controversial way.

‘This is fundamental’

With exports suffering and critical business activities in limbo, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod says the move is vital in keeping Denmark at the forefront, even if the country is shut down until February 28.

As one of the world’s most digitized countries, Denmark is ideally placed to become a testing ground for this new technology, based on public and private partnerships, says Kofod.

“This is fundamental because if we want to get back to exporting and trading again, seeing business people meet again, things like the Corona passport are essential to make that happen,” he says.

Time is running out

Lars Ramme Nielsen of the Chamber of Commerce of Denmark also advocates rapid adoption of the technology and says time is of the essence.

“If we do nothing, if we wait, nothing will happen,” he told CNN. “If you start when Covid-19 has left society, it will be too late. With this project we are very positive that we will have a summer full of joy, football and music. So better start planning now.”

Despite the apparent threat of this attempt to unlock its borders, Denmark is currently living under its strictest Covid-19 lockdown to date amid heightened concerns about the spread of the Kent strain of the virus identified in the UK.

That means that everyone entering the country must submit a negative Covid test and be quarantined upon arrival. Restaurants, bars and hairdressers are all closed and gatherings of more than five people are prohibited.

The European football championships, taking place in Denmark this summer, feel like a distant future.

So how does Denmark’s Covid-19 “passport” work?

There are at least four out-of-the-box solutions that are largely based on two types of technology. One relies on external cloud servers where information is stored in bulk. The other uses blockchain, a more complicated system that could better protect privacy.

Because personal medical information is so sensitive, it is a difficult decision. That’s why many European countries under strict EU privacy laws seem desperate for someone else to go first.

Digital toolbox

The high level of investment in the development of Covid passport systems indicates a great optimism from the private sector that they will become a common way of opening borders.

The International Air Transport Association has been working on it since the end of 2020. Others with options ready to go include the nonprofit Commons Project Foundation, computer giant IBM, and the secure ID company Clear.

Some of these apps – such as the Commons Project’s cloud-designed CommonPass – are already used to a limited extent by airlines.

IBM, which has been working with a global team on its “Digital Health Pass” for nine months, uses QR codes that can be updated to reveal a variety of medical data that could be useful as the pandemic progresses.

“This is a global initiative and we have put it in a toolbox that any government can use,” said Carsten Storner of IBM Denmark. “It’s not just vaccines. We’ve opened it up to store all the relevant data in Covid-19. It’s also your test results, your antigen test, and who knows what the future will hold in terms of variants.”

Denmark’s planned passport would first be rolled out to business travelers, eager to revitalize trade with foreign markets, which account for a third of GDP.

Mette Dobel, regional president of cement and mining company FLSmidth, knows how crucial it is for her workforce to be on the road to opening new markets and maintaining existing customer relationships.

“We are a company that cannot be controlled through a web shop,” she told CNN. “The personal dialogue, especially in often relatively large projects, is necessary. We have 300 people in Denmark who are always traveling. We need our people.”

Once the business community is up and running, the hope is that the hospitality and mass entertainment industry in Denmark can adopt the coronavirus passport.

Dividing society

With a strong digital culture, Denmark could be the perfect testing ground for this new technology.

But not everyone is pleased with the concept, and there are concerns that it could create a two-tiered society to the detriment of unvaccinated individuals.

“I’m against it because I’m breastfeeding. I think the passport will make it very difficult for those who don’t have or want the vaccine to navigate society. I’ll split us up into an A team and a B team. team., ”she says.

Peder Hvelplund, an elected official and health spokesman for the Red-Green Alliance political group, asks why the country can’t wait for everyone to be vaccinated in the summer, which is just months away.

“The question is whether this makes any sense at all,” he says. “The more people we vaccinate, the more the rate of reproduction will decrease. It is in the interest of the business community to open up again to everyone and allow as many people as possible to benefit from it.”

Business leaders are divided on the topic.

Trade organizations are lobbying hard for a passport scheme as soon as possible, but restaurateurs such as Philip Helgstrand, owner of the Restaurant Strandhotellet in Dragoer, a port city south of Copenhagen, are unhappy.

Helgstrand says it’s not feasible for small businesses to be responsible for verifying and processing each customer’s Covid data, especially travelers from overseas, such as the cruise ship passengers who once pre- pandemic customers.

“I don’t think it’s fair to ask everyone who enters the restaurant,” he says. ‘We have to ask’ do you have a mask? Don’t get too close to this and that. ‘ It should be the job of border control and for the police to see the passport. ‘

These arguments are not unique to Denmark.

Last year, the advocacy group Privacy International warned that vaccinations “should not be viewed opportunistically as yet another collection of data,” warning that “until everyone has access to an effective vaccine, such passports to access the service will be unfair.”

There are also concerns about how Covid passports could work worldwide.

After screwing up the procurement and rollout of coronavirus vaccines, the EU’s next crisis could focus on standardizing immunization records to ensure that most central principle of the bloc: the Schengen Agreement on Free Movement.

If each country takes a different approach to whether or not to adopt a Covid-19 passport and choose different systems, things can quickly get messy.

International project

How each Member State views the subject seems to be influenced by that state of its finances.

Greece, which lost 70% of its tourism income last year, is reportedly planning a Covid passport, as is Sweden. Hungary and Poland also both have some form of digital immunity documentation in the works.

The most powerful countries in Europe, Germany and France, have not yet supported such an initiative, despite similar laws already in place for other viral diseases such as yellow fever.

In a new Brexit Britain, where more than 14 million people have already had their first dose of a vaccine, the concept of a coronavirus passport has received little support, although it is still debated.

Denmark is aware that part of the success of its passport will lie in whether other countries actually recognize it and not just within the EU bloc.

“It is of course important that the passport is also recognized in other countries and that work must now take care of that,” said Kofod, the Danish foreign minister.

Lars Sandahl Sørensen of the Confederation Danish Industry sees room for the UN and WHO to get involved in some sort of certification process. Without it, he says, Denmark will be cut off from what it needs to make ends meet.

“Denmark is a country that trades and trades with the rest of the world,” he says. “We live off that interaction with the world, so this stops a society like the Danes.

“We want this to be an international project. We want to be able to communicate with other countries. But we are starting in Denmark to show that this is possible – mobility within the country and beyond.”