(Seven-minute read) 

 

COVID LIKE THE FLU IS A VIRUS IT MUTATES IT DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE, UNLIKE PASSPORTS WHICH ARE DISCRIMINATORY.

They should be fought against “tooth and nail.

They will become a backdoor to the rules yet to be made up, mutating into a wider digital identity scheme with the data more than likely to flow to third-parties with varying degrees of repurposing trustworthiness.

Even with the most privacy-preserving technology, the expectation is that health data will be viewed by different actors, from healthcare settings, employers, clients, police, and pubs to insurance companies, who may have different levels of experience and trustworthiness in handling personal data. 

For those without a passport, they will constitute a denial of liberties that others are being granted.

Such a program could potentially bring about invidious discrimination against racial and ethnic groups and stigma against an uninfected individual fracturing the solidarity of societies so the introduction of a vaccine passport or any such document that would deem someone “immune” goes beyond just the obvious challenge of logistics.

Why?

By replicating existing inequities, the use of immunity passports would exacerbate the harm inflicted by COVID-19 on already vulnerable populations.

The choice is not between returning to a normal life versus issuing immunity passports. Instead, the choice is between periodic lockdowns, attempting to emerge from lockdowns with immunity passports, and attempting to emerge from lockdowns without immunity passports.

First, a strong presumption should be in favor of preserving people’s free movement if at all feasible.

Passports or Digital IDs will eventually be weaponized creating coercive and stigmatizing work environments and are more likely to compound than redress…structural disadvantages and…social stigmatization.

In either form they will create a perverse incentive for individuals to seek out infection or choose to fraudulently acquire passports permitting immune individuals to exercise more freedoms than those who are not immune would undermine the message that we are “all in this together”

Although we recognize the deep existing inequalities in all countries and the ways in which COVID-19 has increased the hardships for the worst off they will turn the population into products to be are traced and tracked with employees risking losing their jobs if they don’t get vaccinated.

The advantages accruing to those with immunity (and immunity passports) would persist into the future. 

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Faced with a deep economic recession/ depression governments around the world are considering the use of immunity passports to allow a degree of normality to return.

It is unethical to require someone to avoid contact with others if they pose no or minimal risk of spreading the virus. I acted in the belief that I was immune.

Some have claimed that “the whole point of immunity passports is to control movement”.  However, this claim is a gross mischaracterization: the point of immunity passports is to facilitate movement when it is safe to do so.

The root of the concern for many is the unknown degree to which past infection confers future immunity. Until it is understood whether or not people can be reinfected with the disease, and how long any immunity lasts, the move to issuing covid passport is premature.

For certificates or any form of passport to work internationally, they must be recognized by countries around the world.

COVID jabs certificates are readily available to creative forgers to copy.

Individuals who are immune to SARS-CoV-2 are expected to be at a vastly reduced risk of getting and transmitting the virus, and so removing their civil liberties would be unjustified.

The main argument for their issue is that it is unethical to restrict freedom unless there is a real risk to other people.

We have the technology to decide who is not a risk, we should use it.

Whether immunity passports should be used to reliably identify immune individuals it would be better to look for solutions to the inequitable distribution of resources and to tackle the upstream causes of inequality.

This same reasoning should be applied to immunity passports.

Furthermore, as some have highlighted, the advantages of COVID-19 immunity might not entrench existing inequalities in the way often assumed. We might wish to certify only those who are unlikely to transmit the virus.

The U.K., now shut out of the E.U. thanks to Brexit, is considering its own brand of immunity proof that would allow vaccinated people to go to restaurants, pubs, and—if other countries allow—the airport.

The safety-first mentality could spread into almost every area of modern life. When it does, there’s no telling where it will lead – this is murky territory that will develop into an app.

Everyone’s vaccination status is already being logged centrally by the National Immunisation Vaccination System using their NHS number. This information could be easily linked with an app.

Will, there use be legal or illegal?

That’s the crucial, still unanswered question.

Unless such discrimination is ruled out under the law, we can expect more of it.

The moral quandary is the same: Is vaccine ID a harmless tool that creates a safer society — or a sudden expansion of a surveillance state?

God forbid if I am ever asked to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am. I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.