The European Union’s Digital Covid Certificate is now live across the EU as well as in non-member states Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, enabling residents to be issued with a proof of their Covid-19 vaccination status, negative Covid test result or recovery from the illness that is recognised regionwide.
“Twenty-one member states as well as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein had already started to issue certificates ahead of today’s deadline and five EU countries are starting today,” the European Commission says.
According to the commission, more than 200m Digital Covid Certificates have been generated across the EU to date.
Ireland is the only EU country that has yet to start issuing the digital certificates. This is “due to the recent cyber attacks on the Health Service Executive,” an RTE report says.
The EU is also considering the acceptance of certificates issued by non-EU countries, including the UK’s NHS Covid certificate that was rolled out in England in May.
“Where the EU is satisfied that a non-EU country issues certificates in compliance with standards and systems which are interoperable with the EU system, the EU can adopt a decision on the basis of which such non-EU country certificates would be accepted according to the same conditions as EU Digital Covid Certificates,” the EU says.
Seven European countries began issuing the EU’s Digital Covid Certificate when the EU Gateway authentication system went live on 1 June.
EU Digital Covid Certificate goes live across European Union was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.