More than a year into the fight against the novel COVID-19 virus, as countries and international organisations are working to approve, distribute, and administer vaccines as widely and quickly as possible, we are seeing a growing number of proposals for digital vaccine certificates, also referred to as 'vaccine passports'. These proposals aim to digitally link the vaccination status of an individual with a government-provided digital identity or to create a separate digital identity framework for recording and authenticating a person’s vaccination status.

In this report, the authors analyse the impact of COVID-19 digital vaccination certificates on human rights, from both a global perspective and through specific case studies.