The implementation of the European Union Digital COVID Certificate for international travelling
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59096/wesr.v56i6.5327Keywords:
EU DCC, European Union, COVID-19 pandemic, Electronic Vaccine Certificate, International Health Data ExchangeAbstract
Introduction: The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019, also known as COVID-19, in 2021 caused lockdowns in both domestic and international travel, damaging the global economy and the well-being of people worldwide. After the COVID-19 vaccination campaign was initiated, international travel began to ease under measures to reduce the risk of transmission by requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for travel. Thailand, therefore, developed a COVID-19 vaccination database system to support international travel by connecting with the European Union Digital COVID Certificate (EU DCC) system. This aimed to facilitate international travel and elevate Thailand's data system standards to international levels.
Methods: This study reviewed the usage statistics and the process of developing and upgrading Thailand's COVID-19 vaccination data system to meet the standards set by the European Union. This involved developing an automatic international data connection system that would extract data from Thailand's COVID-19 vaccine system and convert it to comply with the EU DCC standard for display in the destination country's system for international travel purposes.
Results: Thailand successfully upgraded its COVID-19 vaccination data standards to meet the European Union standard and achieved the objective of providing proof of COVID-19 vaccination for international travel through data connection to the EU DCC. Between September 1, 2021, and November 30, 2024, there were a total of 5.4 million uses. Of these, 3.34 million uses (61.11%) occurred in September 2021, and 1.35 million uses (25.00%) occurred in October 2021. High usage was also observed in February–June between 2022 and 2024. However, due to the EU DCC requirements, personal data is encrypted, thus making it impossible to analyze user characteristics.
Conclusion: Thailand achieved success in upgrading its data system to international standards and was able to connect its vaccine system with the European Union through the EU DCC for the first time in history. Since the European Union does not publicly disclose country-specific usage statistics for the EU DCC system, and it is not possible to analyze detailed user characteristics according to the European Union's standard requirements, this report from Thailand is the first country to report statistics on the EU DCC system connection. Although this development focused on connecting COVID-19 vaccination data, this success will serve as a foundation for the development of other data systems in the future.
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