As the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic began to wind down and vaccination rates shot up, technologies to support the removal of restrictions on movement came to the fore. Vaccine certificates from the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) were made available through the Medicare Express Plus app and MyGov and could be stored in digital wallets, but concerns over the ability to fake the certificates began to rise.

The states and territories were taking their own road for vaccination passes, with NSW beginning a trial of a state-wide solution linking the certificates to the NSW government’s Service NSW app. Others were working to add COVID vaccination certificates to each jurisdiction’s check-in apps, with the federal government saying this approach was necessary as public health orders and check-in QR codes are controlled by the states.