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COVID-19 Certification

23 December 2020

Despite the characteristically vague non-answers from politicians about whether the UK Government will be introducing some kind of “health passport” for those who have been vaccinated, allegedly against COVID-19, or tested negative for COVID-19, it appears they are most definitely going ahead with it.

Here is a link to the page on the Government website entitled “Covid-19 Certification/Passport MVP”, confirming that this is an “Awarded opportunity – This means that the contract has been awarded to a supplier”.

The contract is described like this:

“Develop a negative Covid-19 test certification minimum viable product.”

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/bf6eef14-6345-429a-a4e7-df68a39bd135

An MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is described as:

“a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development. A focus on releasing an MVP means that developers potentially avoid lengthy and (ultimately) unnecessary work.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

So the intent is to get this out as quickly as possible, and this is confirmed by the wording in the partially redacted commercial agreement (mirror) where it states:

DHSC is planning to deploy negative Covid-19 test certification minimum viable product, to enable workplaces, educational centres, health and social care services and places of business to open to members of the public who have tested negative for COVID-19 within a specified timeframe in addition to other criteria.

Page 2 – https://atamis-1928.cloudforce.com/sfc/p/#0O000000rwim/a/4J000000kEtb/q_ZPcSZCX0JVR6ow7pfIyhyUAL7FowwFrt3S2AQfrQk

It also mentions this needs to “enable members of the public to show negative COVID Test status evidence electronically as soon as possible.”

There is another reference to this contract here on the Bidstats website where tenders for this kind of thing are listed.

The company that was given the contract is Netcompany UK Ltd. and their website looks very grand. They are obviously very proud of the work they do for the UK Government as their home page is chock-full of references to it. They claim to have 2,500+ employees in 10 offices across 6 Countries.

On the Companies House website it appears that in March 2018 the company changed hands from a board of British directors to a small group of four Danish directors, only one of which is reportedly a UK resident. We can presume this UK company is part of a larger Danish owned company.

This company has done lots and lots of digital/cloud work for the UK Government and has landed the contract for the MVP for COVID-19 electronic health certification. While it may not be them that lands the final full contract (although their track record would certainly put them in a strong position) it is clear this is going ahead.

So, just in case there was any doubt this was just a wacky “conspiracy theory” like all the rest of the legitimate concerns, it evidentially isn’t.