The Hungarian COVID-19 passport will be one of the most important documents of 2021
Hungary is one of the world’s leaders in making the COVID-19 passport, said Bállint Szabó, deputy director-general of the National Hospital Directorate-General, to Magyar Nemzet, a Hungarian daily, on Wednesday. The government bodies responsible for the project will create a mobile app system allowing all Hungarian citizens to prove that they already got the vaccine.
The demand for such systems is rising because they allow people to feel safer while travelling. Furthermore, the need is present because people would like to use services where there are huge crowds, so the danger of getting infected is considerable. For example, people would like to go to cinemas, concerts, travel by plane, and visit their hairdresser, Bálint Szabó added to Magyar Nemzet.
Therefore, they created a mobile app system with which citizens can prove with their smartphone that they got the vaccine. It will consist of two apps. One of them is the so-called COVID-19 passport, while the other one will be a monitoring app. The application
will know only the data that are already in the National eHealth Infrastructure.
Of course, it will not show other medical records of the people to the authorities. Thanks to the new system, several opportunities will open again for all those who already caught the disease or who got vaccinated.
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Based on what Mr Szabó said, Hungary is ahead of several other countries in this project. Furthermore, the country’s IT system is unique as well because
a lot of important personal medical information is already uploaded to it.
Mr Szabó highlighted that most people would like to return to the lives they got used to before the outbreak of the epidemic. However, until global herd immunity is reached, such measures are inevitable. He said that the app is ready, and it only needs to be checked by the authorities to make it available for all Hungarian citizens.
But how will it work?
First, it will identify the citizen with the help of their social security number. If that is approved, it will make the necessary COVID-19 certificate by checking the citizens’ COVID-19 tests, vaccination history, and other relevant medical records. The results will appear as a QR-code containing a time code and an electronic signature. People will be able to use this so-called COVID-19 passport not only in Hungary but also abroad.
Source: Magyar Nemzet