Moving towards Digitising COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate: A Systematic Review of Literature

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic is the greatest crisis of our time, having claimed over 2 million lives and shocking the global economy. Scientists and governments have suggested the idea of a digital COVID-19 certificate, to identify vaccinated persons easily. This paper assesses the positions of stakeholders on COVID-19 vaccination certificates, their presentation, and their importance. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) was applied in this study. Search terms with Boolean and/or operators were combined to increase relevant results. Four large digital databases were used for the search. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to screen 298 collated studies. Two reviewers independently assessed search results, extracted data, and assessed the quality of the included studies. It is essential to re-examine digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates, considering their benefits, such as real-time detection of fake vaccination certificates and identifying and mapping non-vaccinated areas for strategic vaccination planning. The use of a single electronic platform globally will ease verification processes while bringing economies back to their feet. Digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates may provide balance in this pandemic era. With digital COVID-19 certificate exceeding documentation purposes, it is important to recognise factors such as global economy and human rights, boosting free movements of persons.

Privacy-Preserving Solution for European Union Digital Vaccine Certificates

“…There exist several proposals for the COVID-19 Pass, COVID-19 Certificates, or the Green Pass. Recently, Karopoulos et al [2], Mbunge et al [3], and Kissi et al [4] surveyed proposals and works focused on COVID-19 digital certificates. In this section, we firstly present well-known deployed solutions; then, we present privacy-preserving proposals and concepts that are relevant to our scheme.…”

A Digital Vaccination Pass Using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources: A Proof of Concept

“…This created opportunities for fraud, with unvaccinated people faking the analog vaccination booklet and therefore potentially putting themselves and others into danger [1] and leading to false statistics regarding breakthrough infections [2]. With the release of COVID-19 vaccination certificate solutions [3,4] in Germany, manageable with the smartphone app CovPass, medical doctors and vaccination centers additionally handed out these certificates in the form of a QR code printed on paper, which would increase the system provides a secure and convenient way to examine their immunization records, allowing them to easily check their vaccination status. The system also offers personalized recommendations for missing vaccinations based on individual factors such as age, medical history, and current immunization status.…”

“…The same applies to ethical issues of healthcare digitalization and the systems built, of which we are aware. For both, we refer to related work [3,4,6,28].…”

A Digital Certificate System That Complies with International Standards: Taiwan Digital COVID-19 Certificate

“…Through the efforts of CECC and the Taiwanese government, using the Entry Quarantine System and Home Quarantine Tracking System developed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), CECC announced that they were lifting the Level 3 Alert on 28 February 2022 [5]. As the pandemic has slowed and the symptoms of COVID-19 patients have become less severe, many regions have chosen to coexist with the pandemic and gradually ease their border restrictions with conditions, such as requirements for COVID-related certificates, etc [6,7].…”