At the press briefing on September 20, premier Gladys Berejiklian offered more details about how NSW‘s vaccination passport will function, once the state begins to reopen next month.
She confirmed that the vaccination passport “won’t be a bit of paper in your pocket” or the digital document that many people currently have access to via Medicare. Vaccination status will be linked to a person’s Service NSW profile, which will access a user's immunisation records when they check in to a venue using a QR code. The checking-in process in NSW has been in place for more than a year, and it’s hoped that making the vaccination passport part of this already ubiquitous action will make it easier to launch.
Berejiklian described a hypothetical scenario that would involve a shopper checking in when they arrive at a mall or shopping centre to gain access, and then again when entering any shops within that mall. The premier confirmed that only fully vaccinated people would be allowed to enter “non-critical retail” once the state begins reopening in October. Berejiklian said that the state government would “take action” against shop owners who chose not to enforce the use of vaccination passports, adding that authorities were “working with stakeholders to make sure we’re giving them the best advice on legal requirements”. However, there is still no clear advice on how business owners and their staff are meant to deal with unvaccinated people attempting to enter their premises either surreptitiously or by force.
There are still significant hurdles that will need to be jumped before the passport system, as described by Berejiklian, can be implemented. Currently, immunisation information is held by the federal government, and Berejiklian said this data would need to be released to the NSW government before the passport system can be rolled out.