Vaccine Passports: Are They Worth It?
As the world itches for a return to normalcy, the idea of vaccine passports offers a tempting opportunity to resume regular travel without the mandatory quarantine, but its implementation comes with controversy.
The idea of vaccine passports is not new. For many years, travellers have had to show proof of vaccination against diseases like malaria, yellow fever, and cholera to be able to visit certain countries around the world. Travellers would carry ‘yellow cards’, which verified their vaccinations to border control. The idea of requiring vaccination has also been longstanding in the case for many public schools and universities, where enrolled students often must prove that they have been vaccinated against certain diseases.
A vaccine passport would likely take the form of digital documentation that would prove either vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative test. This digital process is being prioritized because other forms of physical passport modification have taken decades to enact. Digital proof of vaccination or a negative test would allow travellers to prove their status simply by opening an app on their phone.
The passports have the potential to begin to return international travel to its pre-pandemic levels. They might increase confidence in the safety of air travel, which would support airlines that have suffered massive losses over the last year. Countries that depend on tourism would be able to allow visitors to enter without the fear that they will fuel an outbreak in the country, benefitting both the tourism industry and individuals who have been waiting a year to travel. Furthermore, the passports could increase travel for business, and allow companies to travel as they did before the pandemic.
Various airlines, health organizations, and countries are testing different platforms for digital health passports. One of the leading vaccine passports is called CommonPass and it seeks to provide travellers with a ‘secure and verifiable’ way to confirm their vaccine or test status. The platform is currently being tested by the World Economic Forum’s Commons Project, where not only functionality but data security is paramount.
The idea of a vaccine passport is debated most around two primary concerns: that it might increase the inequality already exacerbated by the pandemic, and that the passport’s digital presence will risk large amounts of global health data.
The widely circulated idea that ‘COVID does not discriminate’ has in many ways been proven false. In the United States, poor areas have faced more cases, higher death counts, and lower quality care than those on the other side of the poverty line. Some see vaccine passports as a way to further partition an already divided world. The wide-spread use of a vaccine passport system might create a two-tiered society where some can live life as normal while others remain hunkered down in isolation. In the race to vaccinate, wealthy countries like the United States and European Union are expected to be sufficiently covered by late 2021. Poor countries like Indonesia or Algeria, on the other hand, are expected to achieve the same level of vaccination coverage sometime in 2023, if at all. This would create a multi-year divide between wealthy and poor countries in terms of their citizens’ ability to travel.
Some argue that it would create a divide between the old, who are likely to receive the vaccine first, and the young, who are primarily last in line. Around the world, many older individuals have been vaccinated already while the young population may have to wait months or years depending on where they live. This would limit travel for only part of the population for a significant period of time.
Furthermore, some can not be vaccinated due to health issues like serious allergies and would face long-term exclusion from travel. It is unclear when the world will be vaccinated to the point that unvaccinated/tested travel will resume as the norm, so this could bar many from travelling for a long time.
A second concern regarding vaccine passports is the risk that the digital system would pose to global health information. These digital applications seek to alter the parameters for travel, a process that normally takes years, in a matter of months. Some fear that the health information stored in these applications is at risk for misuse or exposure and argue that it also raises concerns about the right to live free from surveillance.
Online biometric authenticator IPROOV seeks to address some of this concern in its strategy to create a viable vaccine passport. The company emphasises that the only things necessary are verification of whether a given person has had a vaccine, and what they look like.
The idea of a vaccine passport promises an accelerated return to normal travel, but at the same time poses complications regarding inequality, the passport speed of development, and data protection.
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