TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Starting on Thursday (July 14), Taiwans digital COVID vaccine certificate will be compatible with the SMART Health Card (SHC), which is recognized by several countries including the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Australia, among others.

CECC official Pang Yi-ming (龐一鳴) announced Wednesday (July 13) that Taiwans COVID certificate will be integrated into the SHC framework starting at 8 a.m. on July 14.

The European Commission on Dec. 21 last year announced that Taiwan had officially joined its EU Digital COVID Certificate (EU-DCC). On Wednesday, Pang said that Taiwan had joined the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), an international organization led by the U.S., on May 20, enabling Taiwan to issue digital vaccine certifications in the SHC format.

Pang said that in addition to the U.S, the SHC framework is available in Japan, Canada, Australia (Sydney), the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshal Islands, and the Republic of Senegal. Compared with the EU format, the SHC has more detailed information, such as vaccine type, brand, name, batch number, and so on ... Therefore, an internet connection is required for its use.

Pang said that when undergoing the standard three-step Taiwan digital COVID certificate application process online, users starting Thursday can apply for both the SHC and EU-DCC certificates at the same time. After completing the application process, the certificate can be downloaded in SHC or EU-DCC formats.

The SHC can then be saved to digital wallets on Apple Health and Apple Wallet for iPhone owners and Google Pay and Samsung Pay for Android users.

Vaccinated Taiwan residents wishing to apply for SHC can do so by visiting the Digital COVID-19 Certificate website. However, Pang said the site would be down from 6 p.m. Wednesday to 8 a.m. on Thursday in order to update to the new version.