What you need to know
- A new COVID-19 travel pass for iPhone is set to go live in the coming weeks.
- The International Air Transport Association announced its IATA Travel Pass back in March.
- It will let passengers carry with them proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test, whilst also providing helpful information.
A new International Air Transport Association travel pass is set to go live on iPhone and Android in the coming weeks.
The IATA Travel Pass was announced back in March and is an effort by the International Air Transport Association to provide safe measures for air travel, including vaccine certification and information. From the body:
IATA Travel Pass is a mobile app that helps travelers to store and manage their verified certifications for COVID-19 tests or vaccines. It is more secure and efficient than current paper processes used to manage health requirements (the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis, for example). This is important given the potentially enormous scale of testing or vaccine verifications that will need to be securely managed.'
The app will let authorized labs send test results and vaccine certifications to users securely, and will help users to find test centers at departure and arrival locations as required by whatever journey they happen to be on. It also tells people what kind of measures they can expect when traveling, for example, if they are required to be vaccinated or to present a negative COVID-19 test. It also lets users create a "digital passport" that can verify they have received either a negative test or a vaccination, which can then be used as a document whilst traveling.
The IATA is being trialed by some of the world's biggest airlines including Emirates, Etihad, Qantas, Singapore, British Airways, Virgin, and more.
The app is already available to download on the App Store, and Reuters reports that the head of IATA has today stated the project will go live in the coming weeks following testing. The new app will work on any iPhone including the iPhone 12, aslong as its running iOS 13.2 or later.
