CommonPass

In collaboration with The Commons Project,a non-profit public trust building global digital services and platforms for the common good, the World Economic Forum is supporting the development and launch of CommonPass, an initiative which aims to develop a global, interoperable framework to safely restore cross-border travel to pre-pandemic levels.

The challenge: As countries around the world work to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and restart their economies and tourism, they all face the challenge of how to reopen their borders and allow international travel to resume while protecting their populations’ health. The current patchwork of policies and ever-changing border entry and health screening requirements has made international travel incredibly complex, leaving airlines and border agencies uncertain about the validity of test results and passengers unsure of what is being asked of them.

The solution: CommonPass aims to develop and launch a standard global model to enable people to securely document and present their COVID-19 status (either as test results or an eventual vaccination status) to facilitate international travel and border crossing while keeping their health information private. Recognizing that countries will make sovereign decisions on border entry and health screening requirements, including whether or not to require tests or what type of test to require, CommonPass serves as a neutral platform which creates the interoperability needed for the various 'travel bubbles' to connect and for countries to trust one another's data by leveraging global standards.

For governments, airlines, airports, and other key stakeholders throughout the end-to-end travel journey, CommonPass aims to address these key questions:

• How can a lab result or vaccination record from another country be trusted?


• Is the lab or vaccination facility accredited/certified?


• How do we confirm that the person who took the test is indeed the person who is travelling?


• Does the traveler meet border entry requirements?

How it works: In line with protocols and guidelines from international organizations and standards bodies in the aviation and health sectors, CommonPass allows individuals to securely document their COVID-19 status electronically and present it when they board a plane or cross a border.

The framework will:

• Allow individuals to collect and store their health information securely and present their health status in conjunction with border crossing and travel requirements.


• Support a range of health data inputs, including PCR test results and vaccination records.


• Support a range of health screening entry requirements that vary from country to country and will evolve through the course of the pandemic and beyond.


• Protect the privacy of individual health data.


• Be interoperable across countries and regions.


• Be based on proven, international standards and open technologies.


• Be operated on an open, independent, sustainable, not-for-profit basis.