COVID-19 vaccination certificates for international travel to be available on MyGov from Tuesday

COVID-19 vaccination certificates for international travel to be available on MyGov from Tuesday

New vaccine certificates for international travel will be available from Tuesday morning, as the federal government prepares for the further easing of international border restrictions.

The International COVID-19 Vaccination Certificates work in a similar fashion to existing vaccine certificates and will be available for download through the MyGov website.

But they have added QR codes that can be scanned by foreign border officials.

“If you travel overseas, and that overseas country requires proof of your vaccination status, you will have a copy of it,” Employment Minister Stuart Robert said.

“You may not have to use it — there may be many countries you’ll visit that have no requirement to demonstrate you’ve been vaccinated.

“But the last thing the government wants for Australians when they travel overseas is to be stuck overseas because they can’t prove they’ve been vaccinated.”

Earlier this month Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced international travel restrictions would start to ease from the beginning of November for fully vaccinated Australians. 

The documents are linked to a physical passport, with people asked to provide their passport details when they request the document from Medicare.

The certificate is then sent to the person who requested it, and they can print it off or store it as a file on their smartphone.

Mr Robert, who has responsibility for the rollout of the certificates, said he believed Australians wanting to travel would embrace the new process.

“Australians understand when you travel overseas, countries require documentation to prove who you are,” he said.

“In the same way, for example, that for the last 20 years Australians, when they travelled to Africa, they have had to carry a little international vaccination book that showed the Yellow Fever vaccination.

“This is exactly the same — it’s just done through digital tech as opposed to a paper form.”

The federal government insists the certificates, with the built-in QR codes, are as secure as a traditional passport – carrying a higher level of encryption than the proof of vaccination certificates currently on offer for domestic use.

Foreign nationals can have the Australia certificate linked to their passport if they received the vaccination in Australia

Last week, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet announced an end to hotel and home quarantine for people entering his state. 

Mr Robert said the system had been thoroughly tested for a number of weeks.

“We will be, I think, the first jurisdiction in the world that will go live with this, having worked with the International Civil Aviation Organization, as they put these standards together in May this year,” he said.

Loading form…

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-17/covid-19-international-travel-certificates-available-tuesday/100546130