COVID vaccination certificates to be fraud-proof as web fakes grow

The Morrison government is moving to fraud-proof the upcoming rollout of COVID-19 vaccination certificates.

Government Services Minister Stuart Robert: Picture: Gary Ramage

The Morrison government is moving to fraud-proof the upcoming rollout of COVID-19 vaccination certificates, as European police warn that criminals are circulating fake coronavirus documents on the dark web.

Watermarks and holographs will be used on Australian inoculation certificates showing how many vaccine doses a person has had. Big business and governments are hoping the certificates will help to reopen the economy and eventually international ­travel.

Europol this week warned that criminals were circulating fake negative COVID test results for as much as 40 euros on the internet, as negative tests were needed to travel to most eurozone areas.

Government Services Minister Stuart Robert on Monday said the certificates — based off the nation’s immunisation register — would be moulded to suit both domestic and international security requirements.

“Things we’ll look at are watermarking, holographic marking … there’s a whole bunch of things,” he told ABC radio.

“Right now you can download the immunisation register … five, six million people do it every single year. So, it’ll be that existing format right now with COVID at the top under vaccinating.

“We’ll continue to iterate that in line with any changes … determined internationally, or any other requirements we need to make it easier to access, easy to identify, or more and more fraud-proof.”

Mr Robert also said it was too early to say if vaccination certificates would allow Australians to travel in and out of the country, but migrants would receive one in the coming vaccine rollout.

“There’s a range of decisions that still have to be made, and we tend to make them at the right time to be able to access it,” he said.

“For example, there’s a million visa holders in Australia, so we’ll have a process whereby they can get a vaccination certificate, because currently they can’t. So, I’ll make sure that those million visa holders go onto the Australian vaccination register, so they can actually then be or have access to a vaccination certificate.”

State governments told The Australian on Monday it was too early to say how they would use vaccination certificates in the coming months, including if they would play a part in their internal anti-COVID border controls.

Australian National University professor of population health Shane Thomas said on Monday the certificates would only be useful if the vaccines were effective.