LONDON (Reuters) – Governments and developers around the world are exploring the potential use of “vaccine passports” as a way to reopen the economy by identifying those protected against coronavirus.
However, technology developers claim that these tools have consequences such as perhaps excluding entire groups from social participation and urge lawmakers to think seriously about how they are used.
The travel and entertainment industries, which have struggled to operate profitably while imposing social distancing regulations, are especially interested in a way to quickly check who has protection.
Passport developers include biometrics company iProov and cybersecurity company Mvine, which have built a vaccine pass that is now being tested at the UK National Health Service after receiving government funding. of the United Kingdom.
IProov founder and CEO Andrew Bud believes these vaccine passports only need to contain two pieces of information.
“One is, has this person been vaccinated? And the other is, how is this person? ”
It is only necessary to match a face with a state of vaccination, it is not necessary to know the identity of a person, he added.
Confirmation of the vaccination status of employers could help the nightlife economy, which employs some 420,000 people in the northern English city of Manchester, according to experts.
“We need to look at how to get back to normal,” said Sacha Lord, industrial adviser and co-founder of the city’s Parklife music festival.
Although there have been experiments at concerts and social distance events over the past year, they were not economically viable, he said.
“A concert is not a concert or a festival is not a festival unless you are with your friends.
“I don’t think we should force people to get their vaccine passports. It should be a choice. But at the entrance, if you don’t have that passport, we’ll give you another option, ”he added, suggesting the use of rapid-outcome coronavirus testing.
Bud said vaccine certificates were being rolled out in some countries, and in the United States, private sector health passes were being used to admit clients to sporting events.
“I think vaccine certificates pose huge social and political problems. Our job is to provide the technological basis for making passports and vaccine certificates possible … It is not our place to make judgments about whether they are a good idea or not, ”he said.
He was able to add possible issues related to discrimination, privilege and exclusion of the younger generation that would be the last to be vaccinated, he added, adding that he believed the government was considering it carefully.
Report by Natalie Thomas; Written by Alexandra Hudson; Edited by Mike Collett-White