The World Health Organization will establish a global certification system, like the European Union’s digital Covid certificate. This “world health pass” is possible thanks to an agreement reached on Monday between the WHO and the European Commission.
The European Commission and the World Health Organization announced, on Monday June 5, a historic partnership in the field of digital health. From Geneva, European Commissioner Stella Kyriakides and WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus laid the foundations of this initiative which will strengthen global health security. This new “global health pass” will be inspired by the health pass launched during the Covid-19 crisis in Europe in more than 80 countries: “The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the importance of digital health solutions to facilitate the access to health services” justified the director general of the WHO.
This “global health pass” aims to strengthen cooperation between States on global health issues. This partnership will include collaboration in the development, management and implementation of the system by the WHO, using EU expertise in this field.
No access to personal information
In the conference statement, the two organizations explain that it is “the first building block of the WHO’s global digital health certification network which will develop a wide range of digital products to deliver better health for all. .”
In particular, this will facilitate travel between people who have this certificate. In the future, this device will allow the WHO to extend its analysis beyond Covid-19. It will be possible, for example, to digitize the certification of vaccines. According to the WHO, “the expansion of these digital solutions will be essential to deliver better health to citizens around the world.”
The cooperation between the two organizations is based on values ”of transparency and openness, inclusiveness, accountability, data protection and privacy, security and fairness.” The two organizations will therefore not have access to the personal information concerning the users of this digital certificate.
Neither the date of entry into force of such a device, nor the exact form it will take have yet been defined. The WHO will now enter a phase of negotiation with member countries, in order to adopt this new global health pass. The organization ensures that particular attention will be paid to the fairness of this system: to allow the low- and middle-income country to be part of the global health pass.