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Medicine Digital

Tech Coalition Working To Create Digital COVID-19 Vaccination Passport (thehill.com) 190

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A coalition of health and technology organizations are working to develop a digital COVID-19 vaccination passport to allow businesses, airlines and countries to check if people have received the vaccine. The Vaccination Credential Initiative, announced on Thursday, is formulating technology to confirm vaccinations in the likelihood that some governments will mandate people provide proof of their shots in order to enter the nation. The organization hopes the technology will allow people to "demonstrate their health status to safely return to travel, work, school and life while protecting their data privacy."

The initiative, which includes members like Microsoft, Oracle and U.S. nonprofit Mayo Clinic, is using the work from member Commons Project's international digital document that verifies a person has tested negative for COVID-19, the Financial Times reported. The Commons Project's technology, created in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, is being utilized by three major airline alliances. The coalition is reportedly in discussions with several governments to create a program requiring either negative tests or proof of vaccination to enter, Paul Meyer, the chief executive of The Commons Project, told the Times. The technology will need to allow patients to keep their data secure while being available in a digital wallet or a physical QR code for them to regulate who sees the information.

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Tech Coalition Working To Create Digital COVID-19 Vaccination Passport

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  • As usual (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fph il quozientatore ( 971015 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:04AM (#60947442)
    I am sure it will be 100% anonymous and privacy-preserving and it won't be used to track people, right?
    • Re: As usual (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:08AM (#60947454)

      > *has smartphone in pocket*
      > *complains about possibility of inferior ways of tracking*

      --.--

      Look up "baseband processor". Then "XKeyScore".
      No need to say more... anymore.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Just today an interesting paper was published about this: https://www.schneier.com/blog/... [schneier.com]

        When you go abroad if you use a disposable local SIM card you can be pretty anonymous, smartphone wise. Yeah yeah the NSA and GCHQ have p0wned your baseband processor, but realistically unless you a very high value target to them they aren't going to waste those exploits on you.

    • Re:As usual (Score:5, Funny)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:17AM (#60947474) Homepage Journal
      OH look like's just make it simple.

      We can name the app: "Papers, Please"....

    • Back in the old days, where you went to you community general store to buy goods. You knew everyone there and everyone knew you. One would go and pick up some cream for a rash, then the next day, everyone assumes you have an STD and your Girl Friend is now labeled a whore.

      Compare that today, where you may Google anti-rash cream, and buy it online. You may have some ads for a few weeks for such cream, however, the community isn't judging you on your purchase.

      While tracking technology is advanced, the iss

      • Re: As usual (Score:5, Interesting)

        by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:52AM (#60947580)

        1) Technologically, it is simpler to just track everyone. Why add an exception for somebody? The GCHQ and NSA were the first to aquire the computing power to do that, and bragged about it in the Snowden leaks.

        2) Of course they are judging you! What do you think Trump got banned for? What do you think "moderation" or "votes" (like on social media) and social credic scores or other credit scores are all about? What you are paying for healthcare, car insurance, loans etc, and if people will befriend you, is increasingly based on big data.

        3) In the community store, the amount of people was limited, and the views always shifted with the latest information, while everything could be forgotten and forgiven. And tgere was more context available too.
        On the Internet, there's about 5000 people with the will and means to kill you for it, literally no matter what it is you said or did. And it will still be visible to them in decades. (E.g. for you and me that would probably people believing in Shariah law. Or those who stormed the Capitol. Or racists from other countries. Gotta meet just one of them in a back alley on a holiday trip.)
        This is what the GDPR is all about.

        Why are you parroting such typical extremely clueless talking points? We've been over this, years ago.

        • What you are paying for healthcare ... is increasingly based on big data.

          Hi, this problem got solved pre-2010 with the ACA,also known as Obamacare. Other than age, gender and location, the only price discrimination allowed in the health insurance marketplace is tobacco use.

          loans ... [are] increasingly based on big data

          Loans are the first example of big data, and it's use hasn't really grown.

          car insurance...is increasingly based on big data.

          This is backwards. Car insurance is increasingly being based on

      • I'm not sure if that is an argument. It's like I'm going to the doctor, and instead of curing me he says "back in the middle ages, you'd have been lucky to survive till this age".
    • I am sure it will be 100% anonymous and privacy-preserving and it won't be used to track people, right?

      Exactly. I hate the fact that we've seemingly thrown HIPAA out the fucking window over this.

      People need to understand that this will be demonized by your insurance company to their advantage for years if not decades to come.

      I would not be surprised to find 10 years from now on "random" medical questionaires that are mandatory when you visit your doctors office asking if you've had COVID before, just so they can charge you more.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Of course medical insurance companies are interested in if you are up to date with your vaccinations. This isn't new, if you haven't had your MMR and other childhood stuff it will affect your premiums.

      • In the US, the ACA (aka Obamacare) says that the only criteria they can use to charge you more is age or gender (not under your control) and geographic location or tobacco use (which are). You're so concerned about something bad happening that you're ignoring we a;ready dealt with preexisting conditions.

    • Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle and a few Health IT vendors : what could possibly go wrong ?

      Irony aside, the presence of Apple could be a deciding factor for me : they present themselves as fighting for privacy, hence they would have a lot to lose. If they back an initiative (such as the Covid-19 exposure API), then it probably means that they have checked its privacy implications.

      It is not that I trust Apple more than Google or Facebook : I trust Apple for serving its own interests, which currently incl
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      To be fair the Google/Apple contact tracing system appears to be both privacy preserving and impossible to use for tracking, so there is a chance this will be too.

      Before someone says "Singapore" they are giving their own local contact tracing system data to the police. The Google/Apple one is anonymous and provides no useful data to them.

    • That's not even the issue.

      A passport is typically used to cross a border. That's what it is for.

      Now, we're told that we're going to have new borders:
      - at the cinema
      - at the restaurant
      - ...

      Where does this stop? Do they add a checkpoint for food stores? Do I need a passport to go to the bakery and buy fresh bread? Will there be armed police to enforce this?

      This is worse than any scifi book or movie... I'm sick not of covid, but thinking about all of this.
  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:06AM (#60947448)

    Sounds like less of a hassle. ;)

    • Too obvious. A barcode tattoo on the forearm would be better. Just scan your arm when you scan your boarding pass.
    • If you want it so badly, I *will* leave you one yellow star out of five. Your choice!
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      So how do you feel about children whose parents refuse vaccination being excluded from school, in order to protect the other kids?

      The bigger issues here are the potential to create a divide between those who are vaccinated and those who are still waiting to be, and that people are being given a false sense of security when in fact being vaccinated is not guaranteed protection or safety.

      • by ichthus ( 72442 )
        If "all the other kids" have the vaccine, what's the difference? Why do they need protection?
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The vaccines are never 100% effective.

          Also many schools have a range of ages, and some vaccines can't be given to the younger ones.

          • by ichthus ( 72442 )
            Both of those statements are true. And yet, neither of them provide justification for mandatory Covid-19 vaccination of school children.
        • Not all immunities are sterilizing; in some cases, it's still possible to catch and retransmit the virus, even if your body is able to prevent the manifestation of disease. It's also possible that being exposed to more virions from someone with a high viral load seen in active disease would have a greater probability of causing disease, even if immunized. You must also take into consideration the tiny fraction of people who simply cannot tolerate vaccines (physiologically, not ideologically), if the goal is
          • In brief: the issue is not so much the children themselves, as it is the broad network of people they interact with, both directly and indirectly.
    • Google 'prisoner 16670' - that is what resistance looks like.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • This is pointless (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:27AM (#60947500)

    Being vaccinated confers pretty much the same immunity as having been infected, it is not 100% but it comes reasonably close. The way this is being presented here, only people who have been vaccinated will qualify and that is just idiotic in this context.

    • The idea of not releasing travel restrictions for people that had recovered from infection was floated ages ago at the very beginning of the pandemic and quickly discarded. The point about immunity is technically valid of course, but the problem is that it leads to people going and getting themselves infected on purpose to get around restrictions, or at least that was the reasoning for disregarding that idea. In any case, the number of vaccinations will quickly outpace numbers of infected and in no time peo
    • Being vaccinated confers pretty much the same immunity as having been infected

      I thought the reports said that the vaccine should provide significantly *greater* immunity?

    • Agreed, people who had Covid ams are healthy again should get the same "passport", if we ever do that at all.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's even more complicated than that.

      Getting COVID gives you some immunity for a few months, possibly a little longer.

      Some of the vaccines give you a high chance of being immune, potentially for years.

      Other vaccines only give you a 50/50 chance of being immune, but if you do get it the prognosis is much better.

      And of course in all cases you may still infect other people.

      So this digital passport system would really need to know the type of vaccine, and how it was administered (e.g. Pfizer is supposed to be 2

    • The vaccines give lasting IgG response that natural infection does not, so you're actually better protected than those that went through the illness.
  • "Papers Please" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @09:46AM (#60947562)

    >"working to develop a digital COVID-19 vaccination passport to allow businesses, airlines and countries to check if people have received the vaccine. "

    Or, instead, let people worry about themselves in a free society. It shouldn't matter if you are vaccinated or not as to whether you can travel or work or see a concert, etc. We never did this with the flu. It is a horrible precedent to set. Offer the vaccine to the most vulnerable first. After that, it is about protecting yourself, and that should be one's own choice. At most, we could just continue to expect everyone to maintain reasonable precautions around the most vulnerable, until herd immunity is reached.

    Or, we can head down the path of China and have the government start micro-managing peoples' lives. I am COVID-19 vaccinated. It doesn't change my opinion. I strongly support vaccinations; I don't support making them mandatory, or essentially mandatory by trying to restrict or ruin peoples' lives who choose not to be vaccinated. Freedom comes with risk.

    • Have you ever registered a child for school? You know the school asks for vaccine records?

      • >"Have you ever registered a child for school? You know the school asks for vaccine records?"

        While that is a good point...

        1) Children are not adults and can't make informed decisions for themselves. It is why, for example, I support seatbelt/child seat laws for children, but not for adults (despite the fact I would NEVER get in a car without wearing a seatbelt).
        2) Children are at the absolutely LEAST risk of catching, spreading, or suffering any bad effects from COVID-19.
        3) Last I checked, schools haven

        • >"Have you ever registered a child for school? You know the school asks for vaccine records?"

          While that is a good point...

          1) Children are not adults and can't make informed decisions for themselves. It is why, for example, I support seatbelt/child seat laws for children, but not for adults (despite the fact I would NEVER get in a car without wearing a seatbelt). 2) Children are at the absolutely LEAST risk of catching, spreading, or suffering any bad effects from COVID-19. 3) Last I checked, schools haven't required a [non-novel] flu vaccine. Yet, the regular flu, for whatever reason, is far, far more risk to children.

          I acknowledge nothing about this is simple or "black and white."

          There are some things I'm libertarian about, but not seatbelt or helmet laws. The government has to clean up the mess, so it seem that as part of its job of maintaining and regulating public roads, it can very reasonably require seatbelts in order to use those public roads. It doesn't have to be the government protecting you from yourself, it's the government protecting everyone else from you.

          • There are some things I'm libertarian about, but not seatbelt or helmet laws. The government has to clean up the mess

            Ultimately, the government always has to clean up the mess (or things stay messy/polluted). What are you libertarian about where that doesn't apply?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Stop comparing COIVD to the common flu, it's much worse. The UK just passed 100,000 deaths directly attributed to COIVD, compared to around 500 deaths to flu every year.

      It's not just your personal choice what risks you take, because you are putting others at risk. It's like drink driving, it's not just your own life at stake. Your right to drive has to be balanced against other people's rights to drive and walk safely.

      • >"It's not just your personal choice what risks you take, because you are putting others at risk."

        Most everything we do in life puts others at risk. This is especially true if one throws financial into the mix. A perfectly "safe" life is a life without freedom. There is a balance, for sure, between safety and freedom (of which privacy is one factor), but make no mistake- they are absolutely at odds with each other. And I am appalled at just how little value many people place on freedom/privacy when ch

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The balance tends to depend on the severity of the outcome for the affected person. In the case of COIVD it could be anywhere from 2 weeks off work to death or chronic health problems.

          The second factor to consider is risk. I guess if we could get the risk down to a similar level to the flu then there would be a good argument for treating COIVD the same way. We are a very long way off from that though.

      • If you (and your loved ones) are vaccinated and I am not, how do I put you at risk?
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The vaccines are not 100% effective, even when vaccinated you can still get COVID. The effects might be lessened but we still don't know what the effect on "long COVID", the chronic problems some people experience, will be.

          Recent studies have shown that COVID causes brain damage, which is what leads to some of the long term symptoms.

          • >"The vaccines are not 100% effective, even when vaccinated you can still get COVID."

            Seatbelts are not 100% effective, we still drive.
            Helmets are not 100% effective, we still ride motorcycles.
            Sidewalks are not 100% safe, we still walk.
            Dogs are not 100% tame, we still keep them as pets.
            We are not safe from Lyme disease, we still visit the woods.
            Some can die from exposure to peanuts, we still eat peanuts.
            Some could die from bee stings, they still go outside.
            This list is infinite.

            Life is dangerous. We can

          • --'we still don't know what the effect on "long COVID", the chronic problems '
            What an EXCELLENT reason NOT to get vaccinated. How many studies have been done on the the LONG TERM effects of injecting yourself with 'part' of the mRNA that comes from the virus? Where are the 2 years studies? IF we should be worried about long term effects of the disease why shouldn't we be just as worried about long term effects of the disease fragment, called a vaccine.

      • In the Netherlands there were an estimated 8000 flu deaths in the 2018 season, and several 1000s in other years. It's not credible that the UK with approximately 4 times as many inhabitants would have only 500. Otherwise I do fully agree, my wife has Covid19 over a month ago, similarly to a flu, she wasn't well for a couple of days. Except, this week she still isn't well and her doctor told her to stay at home. 5 weeks after a flu, she'd normally not even remember when exactly she'd had it...
    • I am truly shocked you are getting modded well on /. - thought for sure they would mod you troll for your wrongthink about getting people to do the right thing via persuasion instead of force.
    • It shouldn't matter if you are vaccinated or not as to whether you can travel or work or see a concert, etc

      You do need to get vaccinated if you want to travel internationally. That has been true for decades.

    • "...Or, we can head down the path of China..."
      This seems to be what many of the community here want, and they angrily insist such is the moral high ground.
      (/Baffled)

    • Your position fails to account for those people who can't, for whatever reason, get vaccinated themselves. Your actions will still put them a risk. They are the vulnerable and in society they are to be protected. Your freedom ends where others are injured due to your actions. Also, your line of thought as similar to the herd immunity thinking, where one would keep the vulnerable sheltered and let all the rest go about their business. Those ideas were a thoroughly debunked in practicality and feasibility.
    • let people worry about themselves in a free society. It shouldn't matter if you are vaccinated or not as to whether you can travel or work or see a concert, etc.... Freedom comes with risk.

      Why do you think your freedom to not be vaccinated outweighs my freedom to attend an "only-vaccinated people" concert? Why shouldn't I be able to work at a workplace that enforces "all employees must be vaccinated" policy. Hell, why shouldn't I be able to work at a workplace that enforces an "all clients must be vaccin

  • Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)

    New home of the anti vaxx crowd. Never though I'd see that day come around. Next week will we be having the meeting of the flat earth society?

    • Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <.voyager529. .at. .yahoo.com.> on Friday January 15, 2021 @11:12AM (#60947878)

      New home of the anti vaxx crowd. Never though I'd see that day come around. Next week will we be having the meeting of the flat earth society?

      No.

      There is room for a healthy concern that "papers, please" doesn't stop being "papers, please" because it's on a mobile device and doesn't literally involve a piece of paper. It doesn't stop being "papers, please" because the goal is "stopping the pandemic", or worse, "the greater good".

      It is not at all cognitive dissonance to say, "I believe in vaccinations, but I don't believe in the need for a 'digital passport' to prove I took it", and while I certainly can't speak for all of the Slashdot crowd, what I think you're seeing in aggregate are people who are expressing a problem with unnecessary intrusion by Government and/or Big Tech in the name of "making sure everyone takes the vaccine".

      I do sincerely hope you can see the difference.

    • There's always been a bunch of creationists and antivaxxers, although the former seem to have slowly petered out.
  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @10:43AM (#60947774)
    Absolutely, under no circumstances would I trust Silicon Valley technocrats with that type of information. Not only this creates privacy concerns under normal circumstances, it would also allow them additional control over other aspects of my life when they decide to blackhole me.
  • by Libertarian_Geek ( 691416 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @11:10AM (#60947876)
    2 Years later...


    Big Tech: "We don't your social media post speaking out against big tech's control of social media. "
    User: "ok... you have that right to disagree with me."
    Big Tech: "We're de-platforming you..."
    User: "ok... your platform."
    "Big Tech: "...from all of our platforms, even our vaccine certification platform."
    User: "uh... wait. Now I won't be able to prove my immunity for my job interview tomorrow!"
    Big Tech: "Our playground, our rules. Start your own platofmr and vaccine cert program."
  • by Zarhan ( 415465 ) on Friday January 15, 2021 @11:30AM (#60947950)

    The "yelllow card" by WHO, as per wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] has been available and required for travel in certain countries since the 60's. It's also common to list all your vaccinations on that same card.

    No need for fancy apps for this purpose. Digital versions *do* exist, but the big tech version is not really required here.

  • No, I do not have even a dumb phone, only land-line. When I leave my house, I enjoy leaving the phone behind me. My wife has a dumb phone. When we travel to other countries, we leave it at home. Does that mean we will be prohibited from traveling?

    Yes, I will be vaccinated for COVID-19. I will not be the first in line. I will likely wait 2-3 weeks after my priority group is eligible.

    I do believe vaccines work. I had an uncle die from diphtheria because he was not vaccinated. One of my grand-fathers w

    • You should consider it. The maps on a phone make foreign travel a lot easier. Get a cheap smartphone, and then get a T-mobile pre-paid SIM card for the duration of your trip (T-mobile works well in most foreign countries).

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