How To Store Your Alberta Vaccine QR Code On Your iPhone

This post is an example of the content I share every Friday in my Living by Experience Magazine. If you’d like your free copy, just click here.

Have you tried scanning the QR code on your Alberta vaccination certificate with your own iPhone camera? This may work for other provinces too. Give it a try. You’ll have to print your certificate or display it on your desktop, and then scan the QR code with your smartphone camera. When you do, you’ll see a little Health link appear in the camera preview, like this:

For obvious reasons I’ve replaced the QR code with one that contains my phone number, not my health information. So try this with your own certificate instead, and then press the “Health” link to add your information to your Apple Health record.

If you don’t have your certificate yet, you can get your card-size COVID-19 vaccine record at Alberta.ca/CovidRecords

On the latest iOS, Apple will also prompt to save your vaccination card to your Apple Wallet, however in Alberta this doesn’t work (yet) as the province issues these QR codes without the digital signature that’s required to be able to verify the record. Apple only allows verified records to be added to Wallet. For example, Ontario vaccine QR codes can already be stored in your Wallet as well which makes them even easier to access compared to my method below.

So in Ontario QR codes can now be stored in either your Apple Wallet or the Apple Health app, but in Alberta (and likely other provinces) you can still store them in the Apple Health app.

Disappointing, and hopefully this will be resolved soon, but you can still use (and display) your QR code from the Apple Health data. Just open your Health app, click Browse, and scroll down until you see a new Immunizations category under Health Records. From there, you can open more details on each shot you’ve received, and display the QR code for entry into venues that require it. In my opinion, so much easier than carrying around pieces of paper or looking through your pictures to find the screenshot with the QR code.

Here’s what it will look like (again, by all means try to scan the QR code – I’ve replaced the QR code below with one that contains my phone number, not my health information):

P.S. Questions? Text me: 604-210-8668. Your support means the world to me, so if this post helped you, please consider buying a book (for you), a coffee (for me), or checking out a more in-depth course (for free). Thanks! 🙂