Arrivals go digital to aid tracing

PAPER cards for passengers arriving in Australia will be ditched in favour of a digital system to speed up coronavirus contact tracing and help health authorities verify vaccine certificates.

As international borders start to reopen, people travelling to Australia will be able to complete a new digital passenger declaration on their mobile device or computer, making the process faster and more accurate.

The digital process will be easily integrated into COVID19 contact tracing systems, and could also be used to upload vaccine certificates if they become available in the future.

Currently passenger contact information is collected on paper cards, then scanned and processed manually. The slow system has hampered contact tracing efforts, with basic issues such as illegible handwriting stopping authorities from alerting passengers about potential COVID-19 exposure.

The new digital system would be built as a reusable “permissions capability” that could one day be applied to multiple types of licences, registration, permits and accreditation. The Department of Home Affairs will also develop a digital visa in the hopes Australia could progressively move away from paper visas.

Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge said the new capability would help Australia “reopen to the world”.

“This capability will put us in a prime position to successfully reopen our borders in a COVID-safe way to help with the rebuilding of Australia’s economy,” he said.