Building a Covid Travel Passport Is a Serious Tech Challenge

When Philippe Srour and his wife, Laurence, took an Air France flight to Paris from San Francisco in mid-March, they were given a novel opportunity to escape some of the madness of pandemic-era travel. In exchange for the promise of less hassle at border and security checks, the couple agreed to use a mobile app to display their Covid-19 test results. The trial wasn’t a total success. Srour, an engineer by training, initially couldn’t get the app to work, because it wouldn’t accept his leap-year date of birth: Feb. 29. Although the airport verification steps ultimately went smoothly, the glitch ...