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Date Published: 26/11/2021
ARCHIVED - Hospitality industry demands action over false Covid passports throughout Spain
Entrepreneurs in Murcia have asked for greater control over detecting counterfeit documents
The vaccination certificate has been imposed across much of Europe for entry into hospitality venues and many regions in Spain, such as Galicia and Catalonia, have established their own systems, while over half of the other autonomous communities plan to make the Covid passport mandatory in one form or another.
As always, there are crooks in Spain poised to take advantage of the measure, with advertisements popping up all over social media offering fake vaccine certs for a substantial price. In light of this, regional administrations have called on the central government to develop a system whereby black market digital certificates can be detected.
In the Region of Murcia, Covid passports are still limited to high-capacity hospitality venues and celebrations, but even so, the president of the Regional Federation of Hospitality and Tourism Entrepreneurs Region of Murcia (Hoytú), Jesús Jiménez, has protested that establishments are powerless against counterfeits, as "if the document is presented to us on paper or in digital format on the mobile, we are unable to verify it, we have to trust what customers bring".
Catalonia is already using an app that can detect false Covid passports, but Hoytú is keen to take things a step further by extending the use of the vaccine certificate to all sectors as a means of encouraging those who have not yet been vaccinated to do so.
The Guardia Civil has launched several campaigns warning people against purchasing counterfeit Covid certificates. The authorities have confirmed that if a document issued by the public health services is falsified, the crime can carry a prison term of between six months and three years.
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