Rules Set for City-Wide Vaccine Pass for Feb. 24

Hong Kong’s vaccine pass will kick off on Thursday (Feb. 24), requiring people to show proof of vaccination to enter various regulated premises with the LeaveHomeSafe app. The app will beep a sound when a user is found unvaccinated.

Public entering malls, supermarkets, department stores, and wet markets will still need to use the app, with law enforcement making random checks to see if shoppers are vaccinated.

Restaurants and clubhouses will adopt an “active checking” method, ensuring that every visitor to these venues shows their vaccination records or exemption certificate to staff to scan.

The scanner on the LeaveHomeSafe app will make a beeping sound when checking unvaccinated people entering premises.

Deputy government chief information officer Tony Wong Chi-kwong said in reports that the government decided to use two checking methods based on the nature and risk of the premises.

"In restaurants, we see there is a higher risk of infection and transmission, so we have to ensure that [diners' jab] records must be actively checked," Choi said.

"The downside is, of course, our tracking capabilities will be a bit hampered. Perhaps we need to consider whether we should do active checking later on. But as of now we believe passive checking for these premises is the right way.”

“The vaccine information in the scanner app [used by] operators are encrypted and personal data like names and ID numbers [would become] scrambled data,” he said. "It will keep the information only for 31 days and then the date will be automatically erased."