The Ministry of Health has today published the specification for the COVID-19 domestic vaccine pass and the verifier specification to the Ministry of Health’s Github account.
My Vaccine Pass, which is an official record of a person’s COVID-19 vaccination status, will help people access places within New Zealand that require proof of vaccination under the new COVID-19 Protection Framework. A separate pass for use when travelling internationally will also be available shortly. Both passes will be stored in a QR code that can be downloaded to your personal phone or may be printed out. They will be available later this month.
The specifications that are being released describe the data in the QR code, the technology that is used to encode it, and how the QR code is expected to be interpreted and processed.
The Ministry of Health is also building a free Verifier App to be made available on the App Store and Google Play, for anyone to use to scan and verify a My Vaccine Pass.
“The release of the specifications today, ahead of vaccination passes being required or available, means business and the public can understand how this technology is going to work. It is important for businesses to check out the approach being taken and start considering how best to make this a part of how they operate,” said Michael Dreyer, Group Manager National Digital Services.
The Ministry of Health has appointed tech company MATTR to construct vaccination passes for use domestically and internationally. MATTR will be the main provider of the technology that underpins the Ministry’s My Vaccine Pass and will develop and support the Ministry’s Verifier App for businesses to confirm a person’s vaccine status.
Vaccination certificates can be claimed through the MyCovidRecord platform, which is operated by the Ministry.
“We have been talking to events companies, tourism operators, and other businesses to understand their requirements for verification. The Ministry’s Verifier App can be used for in-person verification, however if companies would like to introduce more sophisticated capabilities, such as integration into existing digital journeys or pre-verification processes, then the technical specification provides enough details for them to do so.”
MATTR is a New Zealand company that has been contracted by the Ministry to construct the vaccination certificates for international and domestic use and has existing technology platforms designed for this and similar use cases.
“It was important for the Ministry to work with a New Zealand tech company that understood the need for the public to have a secure digital record of their vaccine status,” said Michael Dreyer.
A closed competitive tender process by the Ministry of Health called for a collaborative proposal by tech companies who had the credibility and capability to provide certificate generation capabilities for these purposes.
Businesses may want to incorporate the verifier process into their existing software or may have an interest in how to offer this service. The specification and other documentation will be available from: github.com/minhealthnz/nzcovidpass-spec and MATTR and other tech companies can be engaged separately to provide additional verification tools and capabilities.
Feedback or questions may be provided via integration@health.govt.nz.
If you would like to talk to MATTR about the technology and standards behind the Ministry of Health’s Verifier App please contact: info@mattr.global
Please note that MATTR is the Ministry of Health supplier but in making this information publicly available, businesses have information for their regular software and services supplier should they need to build or integrate verifiers into their business processes.
Ministry of Health is the only issuer of My Vaccine Pass and the international pass.
MATTR is a local New Zealand business that contributes to the development of technology standards and creates software that allows data to be verified in a digital environment, in a safe and secure way. MATTR products provide the building blocks to solve and remove the historical challenges of digital security, privacy, and data verification, opening up a new world of trust. MATTR is a subsidiary of Spark and operates as a standalone entity.
What information will be collected in the vaccine certificate system? What data is collected when someone scans their certificate at a business or event? How long will this information be kept and where? And who can access this digital system besides health officials?
The vaccination certificates are created from data held in the Covid Immunisation Register that records New Zealander’s COVID-19 vaccinations.
The vaccination certificate system has been designed to keep people’s details private. When they present their vaccination certificate at a venue, no details will be stored by the official Ministry of Health Verifier App. No one at a venue or any Government organisation will be able to access the data about vaccination certificates used at the venue.
We are looking at legislative protections to prevent third party verifier apps from collecting this information.
Will it be merged with the Covid Tracer system? Or will people be expected to sign in twice at certain locations? If not, why won't they be merged?
There is a button on the Covid Tracer App that takes you to the My Covid Record website.
It’s important to maintain the anonymous nature of the COVID Tracer App. Adding vaccination certificates would require adding stronger identity checks and verification into COVID Tracer to prove who’s using the app in order to show their certificate. This would likely compromise the strong privacy stance the app has at present.
In addition, Google and Apple have advised that it’s not possible to include ‘vaccination certificates’ in an app that provides COVID-19 exposure notifications as it breaches their privacy policies.
Will the certificate system work if a business doesn't have an internet connection? If so, how?
The verifier app will be able to used without an internet connection. Vaccination proof is securely coded into the QR code.
What security will be in place to protect data?
Please provide any feedback via integration@health.govt.nz for consideration.
The Ministry follows rigorous data security practices, including regular independent security assessments, to ensure New Zealanders’ vaccination records are secure and private.
Will legislation be put in place to protect the data? This obviously hasn't happened with the contract tracing app, but there have been promises.
Any legislation needed to support the app is currently being worked through.
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