TheEU Digital COVID Certificate (EUDCC), best known in Italy as theGreen Pass and in France as theSanitary Pass orHealth Pass (passe sanitaire), was a digital certificate that a person has been vaccinated againstCOVID-19, tested for infection withSARS-CoV-2, or recovered from COVID-19 created by theEuropean Union (EU) and valid in allmember states.[1]
The EU Digital COVID Certificate was created to facilitate travel within the European Union. It launched in July 2021, and is available to citizens of the EU, and also to travellers from outside of the region.[2][3][4] By December 2022, the member states had issued more than 2 billion EU Digital COVID Certificates.[5]
With 51 non-EU countries and territories connected to the system in addition to the 27 member states,[1] the EU Digital COVID Certificate is a global standard for COVID-19 certification.[6]
While in March 2022, 17 member states were still requiring travellers to be in the possession of an EU Digital COVID Certificate, this number dropped to 7 member states in May 2022, and eventually to 0 member states in August 2022.[5] The EU Digital COVID Certificate system expired on 30 June 2023.[7]
The EUDCC certifies that a person has either:[1]
Additionally, the certificate contains the full name and date of birth of the certificate holder. No other personal information is included.
Each certificate only certifies one claim, so for each vaccination and each test a separate certificate is required.
The EUDCC was adigitally-signed document.[1] It was usually supplied in the form of aQR code, either contained in aPDF file, or as a printout. There are variousmobile apps available to store and display the EUDCC (such as theCorona-Warn-App); alternatively, the EUDCC can be presented on paper.
To check the validity of the EUDCC, special software was required which scans the QR code and verifies the digital signature, for example the mobile applicationCovPassCheck-App.
Technically, the QR code contains aJSON document with the information payload. This JSON document is serialized using Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR), and digitally signed according to CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE). The resulting data is compressed withzlib and encoded into the final QR code.[8]
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