New York launches Excelsior Pass Plus to expand travel, commerce industries

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New York state has launched Excelsior Pass Plus to expand travel and commerce opportunities by enabling compatibility between the state’s Excelsior Pass platform, which has generated 3 million passes and provides digital proof of vaccination or negative test result, and the globally recognized SMART Health Cards Framework developed by an international consortium called VCI.

The state has partnered with VeriFLY by Daon, through which Excelsior Pass Plus users can securely upload their verified COVID-19 vaccination credentials to VeriFLY and travel through American Airlines to Greece, France, Spain, Italy and the Bahamas, and on indirect flights to El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras and Puerto Rico. The list will continue to grow as partnerships facilitating access to more countries are in development.

“The adoption of SMART Health Cards and open standards in Excelsior Pass Plus is a tremendous step forward in the availability of trustworthy health information for all people,” said JP Pollak, co-founder of the Commons Project, senior researcher at Cornell Tech and a co-leader of VCI. “And as a New Yorker, I’m grateful to be able to demonstrate my health status reliably wherever I go, without sacrificing my privacy. This is one more critical step towards the safe reopening and recovery of our fair state.”

Excelsior Pass Plus was developed in partnership with VCI, a voluntary coalition of 570 public and private organizations including the Mayo Clinic, MITRE, Boston Children’s Hospital, Microsoft and the Commons Project Foundation that lead the development and implementation of the open-source SMART Health Cards Framework and specifications, which are already in use in California, Louisiana and Hawaii.

“As part of Marriott’s Connect with Confidence initiative, which provides innovative meeting solutions and optional health protocols to meeting professionals, we are excited to make New York State’s secure Excelsior Pass solutions available to our meeting planner customers,” said Tammy Routh, senior vice president, Global Sales Organization, Marriott International.

Like Excelsior Pass, Excelsior Pass Plus can be accessed via the Excelsior Pass Web Portal or through the free NYS Wallet App, but requires a valid phone number or email for 2-factor authentication.

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