Apple Wallet Does Not Support v-safe QR Codes

The US Government website and App v-safe, for registering COVID vaccinations are not supported by Apple’s QR technology that allows the addition of vaccination information to the Apple Wallet on Apple mobile devices. Currently, it is not possible to use www.v-safe.gov for registering your COVID vaccinations for use with the Apple Wallet App. This has been verified by Apple Senior Support.

Sites that do support Apple technology include several major pharmacies, and major health care organizations, and many states have vaccination websites providing the compatible QR codes for free. Often vaccination providers are required to submit the vaccination information to the state website. State sites may be the easiest and best sites to get the proper QR code that Apple will recognize.

1 Like

It doesn’t do it because your state government keeps those records. The US CDC V-safe program is a voluntary program to track any side effects after being vaccinated. All information on the site is reported by individuals and is NOT verified, so it does not issue QR codes.

As you implied, the states were the responsible parties for tracking vaccinations. When you were vaccinated, the information was reported to the state health department, but the state did not pass those specifics up to the federal government. So, it stands to reason that the official record must come from either the state or those who actually carried out the vaccinations.

3 Likes

Thank you for your thoughts. It is my understanding that not all states either keep such records or provide the appropriate QR coded for Apple Wallet. This is why I believe that Apple should make the necessary modifications to allow the use of v-safe records in the Apple Wallet as it is accessible to individuals in every state.

1 Like

The problem is that V-Safe records are not “official” records. It’s voluntary self-reporting. The official records are those kept by states and by vaccinating providers. If your state doesn’t track them, then it’s up to whoever you got your vaccines from.

Congress did not authorize the federal government to track vaccinations on that level. They decided to leave it up to individual states. Some states have done a better job of this than others. If you live in one of the states that hasn’t done a good job, I offer my condolences.

5 Likes

If your state doesn’t keep vaccine records properly, your medical plan certainly should, and may be able to put the record into wallet. I didn’t even try our state’s site because I noticed it on my health care web site (one of the ones that uses MyChart), and it very straightforwardly popped up a QR code that Wallet liked just fine, and it also shows up on the watch. You may want to check for what’s encoded and publicly displayed. Mine doesn’t include any sensitive data such as birthdate, just name and the vaccine records with dates, but apparently that can vary.

If you really can’t get OR code access, it’s possible to create an Apple Note with photos of the front and back of the vaccine card, then use a shortcut to display the note (optionally with Guided Access turned on in case someone thinks they have to actually hold your phone to scroll to see both sides). Utility does assume that your state allows photos of the card in lieu of the actual card.

3 Likes

I did not understand that vSafe was intended to serve vaccination records at all, just to follow up on possible side effects.

I have ended up with two QR codes for Covid-19 vaccination records in my Wallet: 1 from the pharmacy that provided the injections, and the other from my primary care provider. Both use MyChart, and I figured there was no harm in having the same information from 2 sources.

Which removes the validity of the AppleWallet as a trusted certificate of vaccination since there is no chain of trust. As others have said v-safe is a health issue tracking programme not an identity programme.

Given the ad hoc nature of just about everything connected to the pandemic, I’m not sure a trusted certificate is possible at this point.

FWIW I use the Apple Wallet around Europe and N America as my primary covid vaccination status identifier - it currently seems to work quite well for that.

My point is v-safe would blow that up the AppleWallet completely as it is an untrusted source of data based on self reporting.

1 Like

As I mentioned before, I’ve had the official Covid-19 vaccination record from my state health department from when the vaccination program started and I got my first shot. That was about 1.5 years ago. During that period I have shown proof of vaccination many times (restaurants, entry to shows, etc.) but have never had the QR code scanned. Instead the checkers seem prefer to see copies of vaccination reord or read the text of the official record.

Has anyone actually had the QR code scanned in order to prove to someone else that they have been vaccinated? When I’ve asked, the checkers haven’t had access to the official Verifier program to actually check the code.

Note that the Verifier mobile app is available on both IOS and Android. II have checked that it works on my record.

I would guess that QR scanning is prevalent at event venues where fan throughput is critic. They normally use scanners for ticket verification, so updating them with a vaccination verifier would probably be simple.

With COVID still being a significant health issue and each state having its own standards and rules about vaccination, there is no consistency regarding proof of vaccination. Additionally, some of the services that used to be free now charge for registration some on a subscription basis. Since V-safe is national and free it would seem logical that it could be utilized as a central service for vaccination records. There is no security protocols for the vaccination cards and they are easily forged. So it would seem reasonable to me that V-safe could be used as a clearing house for record-keeping with state, and medical care providers forwarding vaccination records to them. Additionally self added records should require a photo of the vaccination card to allow user additions. With that in mind, it should be able to issue the proper QR codes for both Android and IOS wallets. Stiff fines should also be imposed for ‘faking it’ to discourage fictitious entries. Given the lack of consistency and security for validation, no validation can be absolutely relied on. Not only that validation is somewhat useless anyway given that current vaccinations are mostly ineffective against some of the newer COVID strains. The bottom line is that a person several weeks after their latest vaccination could be COVID positive. Proof of vaccination is no longer a guarantee that a person is COVID-free. The only true guarantee is a test. The bottom line is that the current system is broken. That is why I believe that in the interest of encouraging people to register their vaccinations and the support of a free vaccination record open to everyone from the US Government, Apple should have its vaccination wallet support v-safe and and/or allow users to scan their vaccination cards into Wallet if desired. While it is far from a perfect solution, it is better than nothing, and if scanning is allowed, adds to the security of a person’s medical information rather than just floating somewhere in the cloud and is available for hacking.

1 Like

When I was on business in Switzerland last year that was the way they did everything. Every cafe, even small ones, would scan your code. They even had you reload it in front of them before just to make sure you weren’t showing a screen shot or something. Their app is very well done. I submitted my California vaxx/booster records to their HHS equivalent and within less than an hour I got a QR code for their app. Excellent service. In fact, it worked so well I’ve been using their app (aptly named COVID Certificate Switzerland) when traveling to EU countries. Just a month ago used it Barcelona. But there nobody actually scanned the code. They just wanted to see I had something. Oh well.

Which APP did you use to get the code?

V-safe After Vaccination Health Checker | CDC

1 Like

I can’t speak to your understanding of how all this works. I did use V-safe myself during my initial series of vaccinations, and what I received was a short code (maybe numeric, maybe alphanumeric, I don’t recall) that was matched in their database so they could track side effects of my vaccination against the particular vaccine lot.

They did not provide any other codes, and particularly not the QR Code that you mentioned in your OP. It’s not that “Apple’s QR technology” or Apple Wallet is at fault here. It’s that V-safe does not provide proof of vaccination, does not provide a QR Code, or anything else. It pulls in any sign & symptom information you provide, rather than pushes out vaccination verification.

Nothing on the site at the link you provided indicates that anything I’ve said in the above paragraph is untrue. There is a big yellow box on the V-safe site that says these things:

In short, there is no connection between V-safe and providing proof of vaccination. This has nothing to do with Apple Wallet, QR Codes, or any official sources of vaccine records. V-safe is an epidemiological and vaccination safety tracker, nothing else.

It won’t happen, nor should it. As others have observed (@fearghas in particular) doing something like that would degrade the validity of the records for the entire population.

I realize the above sounds a little salty on my part, and I’m not directing the emotion at you in particular. Maybe I’ve just had to moderate too many of these discussions over the past three summers with the institutions that I work for, family, friends, neighbors, and so on.

I’d suggest that @ace consider closing this thread to further posts.

1 Like

The CDC Vaccine Information for Adults page does have a link to contact information for state health departments.

More particularly, the CDC also maintains a page with Immunization Information System (IIS) in each state.

Hopefully, from these references, you should be able to find what you need.

2 Likes

Thank you for your clarification on this. In my efforts to register, based on a pharmacy sign I did not see that notice. Apple does not provide any indication that this site can’t be used in any of its wallet or health support articles that I have seen. Yet it would seem logical to me that a government site that records vaccinations would be compatible. That said, it also confirms my thoughts on this that at its core the system is broken.

The only thing it records is your contention that you got a vaccination, not anything from the site confirming that you actually got it. The only purpose for V-Safe is to gather statistics on your reaction and clearly does not provide proof thereof.

Exactly what is the system you reference and how is it broken?

1 Like

I used my health portal to create the QR code in Apple Wallet. I used it for a restaurant last month.