Digital vaccine passports could help life get back to normal, but technology has drawbacks

One of the biggest challenges in exiting a pandemic is knowing when it is safe to regain a sense of normalcy. Now that vaccines are more and more widely available, there is some hope that such a reality will arise sooner rather than later.

However, you don’t want to let your guard down and give the virus a chance to regain some ground as new variants appear in certain areas. This means continuing to keep certain restrictions in place until everyone is vaccinated – or at least enough of the population to ensure herd immunity (experts suggest this is around 70-85%). ).

After a year of closures and varying degrees of quarantine, however, many people are anxious to choose another option.

One solution that is gaining traction is a ‘vaccination passport’, which could allow people to prove that they have been vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to resume certain activities, such as flying abroad, attending sporting events or dismissing. their children. at school.

We already have the vaccination cards issued by the CDC. The problem is, they’re not difficult to fake, making them an unreliable form of proof. You can even buy one online for $ 20. Fortunately, technology has become very effective at solving complex problems, and this is no exception.

The basic idea of ​​a vaccine passport is that you would have an app on your smartphone that you would use to verify your identity and then check with your state or local public health agency to confirm that you received. a Covid-19 vaccine. The app would then display some form of evidence, like a QR code, which could be scanned by a government or businesses, like an airline.

Efforts are already being made to create a kind of digital ‘green card’ that would allow vaccinated people not only to travel without being quarantined, but to engage in all kinds of other activities.

These efforts include a coalition of tech and healthcare companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, and the Mayo Clinic. Meanwhile, IBM is working on a ‘digital health pass,’ using the blockchain to authenticate whether a person has been vaccinated or tested negative. And Clear, who is already working with airlines on trusted traveler programs, is developing an app that she is currently testing on flights to Hawaii.

There are, however, problems. The very fact that technology streamlines the process of building applications, databases, and systems also means that you end up with decentralized solutions to a very universal problem.

Different countries take their own approach to developing vaccine passports, and it doesn’t seem like there is ever a common standard between them. Israel released an app in February that allows its citizens to show proof of vaccination. People who have a so-called “green pass” are allowed in gyms, hotels and other indoor spaces.

Countries like Cypress and Portugal recently announced plans for some form of proof of vaccination, while the European Union plans to roll out a “digital digital pass” that would combine test results, recovery from disease and vaccination status to allow travel within and between Member States. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she intended to introduce legislation to create the certificate in order to “make life easier for Europeans”.

Due to the different approaches, the question also arises as to whether your vaccination passport will actually be accepted wherever you plan to go. In some cases, countries will only recognize proof of vaccination if you have received one of the vaccines approved for that country.

China, for example, said visitors should receive one of the vaccines made in that country. This means that if you have received the Moderna, Pfizer, or Johnson & Johnson vaccines – the three currently in use in the United States – you are out of luck.

However, EU countries disagree with the proposal there, with some objecting that it could lead to discrimination against those who do not have access to the vaccine or choose not to. get vaccinated, often for religious reasons.

In the United States, the White House has said it does not believe the government should issue vaccination passports at all. In a briefing Monday, the administration’s COVID-19 task force coordinator Andy Slavitt said “it is not the government’s role to keep this data and to do so.”

If access to society requires proof of vaccination, we still have a long way to go before we solve the problem of getting everyone vaccinated. In the meantime, should people who have not been vaccinated stay home while everyone else returns to normal?

It’s one thing to prevent people from taking an international flight, but if vaccine passports are needed for other activities – like going to a baseball game or dining out – the vaccine inequality gap becomes a even bigger problem.

Then there’s the issue of access to technology, something the pandemic has exacerbated. If the key to participating in normal activities like eating out is app-related, you probably need a smartphone. Except not everyone has a smartphone.

According to a 2019 study by Pew Research, 81% of adults in the United States own a smartphone. Globally, the number is closer to 45%, which means more than half of the world does not have the technology to take an international flight or go to a baseball game. Requiring digital “green cards” could widen the technology divide even more than it already is.

Finally, whenever you combine technology with highly personal data like health information, people get nervous. The more personal the information, the higher the value as a target for hackers or criminals.

As former CDC director Thomas Friedman pointed out, it could even become a hindrance to vaccination if people think the government keeps a list of people who have received a vaccine. It’s important to make sure that any vaccine passport is private and secure so that people aren’t “tempted not to get the vaccine because they don’t want this thing,” Friedman said.

Privacy concerns might be a good argument against government issuance of passports, but on the other side of the problem is trust. When Apple and Google announced they were cooperating on a Covid-19 exposure notification standard, it was public health agencies that were allowed to build apps using APIs. This is because people are more likely to trust a public health organization than a private company, especially when it comes to health data.

It’s also worth considering whether we really want to store even more personal information on a device that can be lost or stolen relatively easily. If these passports are widely accepted, more of our normal business will need them. This makes it more problematic if you lose your device or if someone else steals it.

A vaccination passport is linked to your personal identity and your individual vaccination record in a database. Since a digital signature is tied to a specific device, you can’t just transfer that data to a new device if you need to replace your phone.

Once you’ve authenticated it, can you re-authenticate if you lose your device? It is an important consideration if it becomes a literal passport in society.

It also means that if a ‘green card’ vaccine is needed to engage in certain parts of society, you can be sure that there will be those who try to cheat the system. Tech companies are certainly working hard to prevent this, but with the number of high-profile hacks and data breaches over the past few months, it’s at least worth considering that a vaccination passport would be a target.