According to the Daily Express, several companies have been given the green light to produce COVID-19 passports. The report says that once vaccinated, citizens will be able to register for a COVID-19 passport to enable them to travel abroad. Some feel that this discriminates against those who have not received the vaccine.

A number of high profile political figures support the plans, including the ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Greece’s PM Kyriagos Mitsotakis. The plans are proposed as a way of enabling those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 to travel.

The Vaccine Minister, Nadhim Zahawi, has categorically stated that vaccine passports are not planned. Speaking to Andrew Marr Show, he said: “Vaccine passports would be discriminatory. That is not how we do things. We do things by consent.”

Several other nations besides the UK are also considering COVID-19 vaccination passports. However, several nations will not pursue them due to the risk of discrimination. The following nations are asking for or administering COVID vaccine passports:

Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Poland
Portugal
Slovakia
Spain
Sweden

In 2020, the WHO (World Health Organisation) stated that it was looking into the idea of having an internationally accepted electronic vaccination certificate. In December, Dr Siddhartha Datta, who is Europe’s World Health Organization programme manager for diseases preventable by vaccine, said: “We are now looking very closely into using technology in thee COVID-19 response, one of the things we are looking at is how we can work together with member states toward creating an electronic certificate.”