Governments and developers around the world are exploring the potential use of “vaccine passports” as a way of reopening the economy by identifying those protected against the coronavirus.
Those developing the technologies however, say such tools come with consequences such as potentially excluding whole groups from social participation, and are urging lawmakers to think seriously about how they are used.
The travel and entertainment industries, which have struggled to operate at a profit while imposing social distancing regulations, are particularly interested in a way of swiftly checking who has protection.
Among those developing passports are biometrics company iProov and cyber security firm Mvine which have built a vaccine pass now being tested within Britain’s National Health Service after receiving UK government funding.
iProov founder and chief executive Andrew Bud believes such vaccine passports only really need to hold two pieces of information.
“One is, has this person been vaccinated? And the other is, what does this person look like?”
You need only match a face to a vaccination status, you don’t need to know a person’s identity, he added.
via Reuters
