Our thinking

(Don’t) pass it on

28 August, 2020

The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with a non-profit, The Commons Project, is developing a global initiative, called CommonPass: a tool to facilitate safe worldwide travel with the aim of helping to get travelling back to pre-COVID levels. This will act as a digital ‘health passport’ to collect data from travellers on their COVID status and streamline a coordinated global response. 

CommonPass promises to solve a few issues in one. It hopes to make it easier for travellers and airlines to disclose health data that is trustworthy and in-line with country-specific COVID policies that are inconsistent and continuously changing – without having to provide data at each border crossing. In turn, the theory is that this will encourage more travel, so that countries can restart the cross-border activity that they rely on economically, whilst ensuring that they can keep their own citizens safe. It would provide consistency and efficacy – on paper, an ideal solution for reducing the complexity around travelling in COVID times.  

Even with the backing of the WEF, data privacy is likely to be a major concern, however. We know people are sceptical and mistrusting about sharing their personal data particularly when it includes health information, and even when the benefits of doing so are clear. Understanding Patient Data is an excellent initiative designed to help with this, which we’ve been involved with – as well as finding solutions and building reassurance, it is a reminder of the barriers in place.  

We’ve argued before that, while the decline in travel has had some obvious benefits, there’s also much to gain from moving between places and cultures. So, we welcome anything that can make it easier – and hope the considerable barriers can be overcome. 

By Cara McEvoy