Covid-19 passports trump travel bubbles, but digital security and test efficacy concerns must be addressed

The postponement of the Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble showed why such deals are risky and prone to failure. Standardised testing metrics and QR codes are a more stable option, but ensuring data privacy and the reliability of testing remains challenging

Vijay Verghese

Published: 8:15am, 30 Nov 2020

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Nietzsche was right – what does not kill us makes us stronger. Having survived oil embargoes, severe acute respiratory syndrome and market crashes – none of which inspired global solidarity – it took a clever and insidious bug to finally get airlines and governing bodies out of their bunkers to sing from the same song sheet.

Come together they have, though, to sensibly script standardised travel and health protocols to replace the current approach, best described as a headless chicken.

Top of the agenda is a possible Covid-19 passport that would bear unique electronic passenger data on inoculations and travel. Taking a bold stand that is likely to be emulated, Qantas wants all international passengers to have proof of a Covid-19 vaccination when this becomes broadly available by spring or summer of 2021.

The demand for inoculation is neither new nor outlandish. Yellow fever, cholera, hepatitis and typhoid shots have long been part of the necessary regimen for travellers to certain areas in Asia and Africa.

Whether this is a tragic portent for anti-vaxxers and neo-Luddites remains to be seen. What appears more certain is that relatively safe corridors can at last be set up with immunity passports, unlike the brave but blighted bilateral travel bubbles.

A Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 plane is parked on the tarmac at Changi International Airport in Singapore on October 24. A Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble was postponed a day before its launch. Photo: AFP

Hong Kong and Singapore, two cities with strong coronavirus curbs and populations willing to adopt smart measures like masks and social distancing, showed how such a corridor might function. The postponement of the travel bubble one day before its launch this month also showed why deals like this are risky at best and spectacularly prone to failure.

Standardised testing metrics and QR codes, which are strongly advocated by China, offer a more stable workaround for travellers. This does open a can of worms when it comes to privacy and personal data being scooped up by both the all-seeing state and private parties such as airlines, airports, hotels, vaccine purveyors and others along the information chain.

Present your boarding pass at an airport duty-free shop and your flight data and name flash up on a screen with scant concern for privacy. No one has really asked why boarding details need to be scanned when a visual check might suffice.

Yet, information is collected and analysed by advertisers, vendors and customs bureaus. In some countries, airport retailers may claim back hefty value-added tax from the government unbeknown to travellers. At many airports, even shops selling non-dutiable goods might demand to see or scan a boarding pass, though passengers are under no obligation to produce it. This sort of gratuitous guff has become a divine right.

This is small beer compared to potential exposure on a Covid-19 passport perhaps linked to an electronic passport, a data-rich digital chain with sensitive information that could be waylaid. Credit cards are frequently compromised. E-passports with biometric data present a particularly inviting target. Anything with a chip in it can be hacked.

Contactless travel at hotels and airports and the broad usage of radio frequency identification (RFID) have greatly expanded vulnerability to data theft. RFID tags are increasingly ubiquitous in credit cards, passports, medical devices or even pet identification implants. Scanners, usually requiring proximity to the target, can pick up customer information while a credit card is seemingly secure in the pocket. Hence the growing interest in specially lined “electronically opaque” wallets that do a better job than aluminium foil.

Securing passenger data is the key challenge for airlines, then, as they consider Covid-19 passports that will exchange digital handshakes with a range of other devices.

Covid-19 contact tracing apps that must be installed on smartphones have raised eyebrows, and rightly so. Digital chains are only as strong as the weakest link. The focus now must be on securing any electronic add-on and stress-testing it to the fullest rather than rushing for early adoption.

It is a fact that the travel business is haemorrhaging, in many cases beyond hope of succour. Time is not on its side, and this is where mistakes can happen. The simple act of standardising tests is itself a monstrous task. In Hong Kong alone, Air India flights have suffered frequent bans over the high rate of imported Covid-19 cases despite preflight screening measures.

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Tracking the massive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the world’s airline industry in early 2020

Clearly, test efficacy is neither a given nor a constant. In a darker vein, the same holds true for ethics. Some passengers might be tempted to bypass a test with the help of a stuffed envelope slipped under the counter. It is known to happen, so the risk is not entirely electronic.

Immunity passports throw up as many ethical and practical problems as they solve. Who will manage this process in each country, and will that person or department be legally bound – or simply honour bound – to vigorously defend protocol?

What happens to unvaccinated travellers or those for whom such inoculation is impossible because of genuine medical concerns? Surely freedom of movement is a right. These issues need to be seriously addressed.

What of the general movement of supposedly low-risk people with a Covid-19 passport or those who have recovered and perhaps acquired some level of immunity? Could they be granted further concessions – doing away with social distancing, for example – to enable care for an elderly parent or the sick? There is some resistance on this as the immune response among recovered patients remains a doggedly grey area.

Perhaps the greatest challenge is determining whether vaccinated people or those who have emerged from having Covid-19 can still carry the virus and thus prove to be a dangerous transmission vector. Worryingly, studies on vaccinated macaque monkeys suggests this may be the case.

Covid-19 passports should not be confused with heightened immunity. There is always kryptonite around the corner.

Vijay Verghese is a Hong Kong-based journalist, columnist and the editor of AsianConversations.com and SmartTravelAsia.com

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