Vaccine passports: what are they and do they pose a danger to privacy?
A nurse prepares to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine. A vaccine passport could be used to open up travel again, or offices and universities. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AFP/Getty
Vaccine passports, which would allow people with immunity to Covid to prove they were at low risk of spreading the disease, are being investigated by companies and countries around the world. But the proposals have also raised fears among critics that they could underpin an oppressive digital ID system, and put sensitive medical records in the hands of authorities and employers.
Despite the name, a vaccine passport is not a piece of paper; instead, in the most developed versions of the idea, it is an app or similar system that can prove thebearer has been vaccinated, tested positive for Covid antibodies, or recently received a negative test. There would be no need to build and operate a privacy violating centralised database.
bearer /ˈberər/ n. 持有者; 擁有者
The pressures on such a system are similar to those faced by the NHS in building its contact-tracing app. A centralised system, which simply keeps a database of people who have been vaccinated and allows them to grant access to others, may be easiest to build, but poses unacceptable privacy burdens. Instead, one proposed system, developed by two British firms, Mvine and iProov, would be secured with a biometric identifier, preventing the records from being accessed without the bearer’s consent.
NHS National Health Service 英國國家醫(yī)療服務體系
grant v.(尤指正式地或法律上)同意，準予，允許 grant sth to sb./sth. | grant sb. sth.
biometric identifier 生物識別碼
“This kind of technology enables the medical professional administering the vaccination to create the online certificate using a phone or tablet, and then to ask the user to have a selfie added to their electronic certificate,” says Andrew Bud, the founder and chief executive of iProov. “The certificate does not need to include the name, address, NHS number or any other identifying information about the person – it is completely anonymous.”
Bud envisions such passports being used in a variety of situations. “Travel is the obvious example,” he says. “Paper vaccination certificates have been a feature of travel to some countries for many years. This kind of digital vaccination certificate may well be needed for travel abroad in future. Aside from travel, employers may decide that access to offices is only safe if an employee or a visitor has one. Universities might make the same choice.”
envision /ɪnˈvɪʒn/ v. 設想
Mvine and iProov are moving into the testing phase of their app, which received £75,000 startup funding from the UK government last year. But the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) says it has no plans to introduce a vaccine passport nationwide. A spokesperson says: “At this stage of the vaccination programme, it is not clear whether vaccines will prevent transmission. As large numbers of people from at-risk groups are vaccinated, we will be able to gather the evidence to prove the impact on infection rates, hospitalisation and reduced deaths. If successful, this should in time lead to a reassessment of current restrictions.”
NHSC Department of Health and Social Care 英國衛(wèi)生和社會保障部
hospitalisation /ˌhɒspɪtəlaɪˈzeɪʃn/ n. 住院,住院治療
The UK companies are not the only ones working on a solution. A coalition of American organisations, including Microsoft, Oracle and the Mayo Clinic, has launched the Vaccination Credential Initiative, aiming to establish wider standards to prevent individuals falsely claiming they have been vaccinated.
Oracle 甲骨文公司(繼 Microsoft 后全球第二大軟件公司)
the Mayo Clinic 美國梅奧醫(yī)學中心
Separately, the DHSC has contracted out its own investigation of a similar proposal for test passports, which would allow individuals to prove they had received a negative test. Contracts for £34,000 and £42,000 were granted last year to two London-based companies, the Hub and Netcompany, to build a “minimum viable product”.
contract out 訂立合同把 (工作) 包出去
Civil liberties organisations are alarmed about the project. “Vaccine passports would create the backbone of an oppressive digital ID system and could easily lead to a health apartheid that’s incompatible with a free and democratic country,” says Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch. “Digital IDs would lead to sensitive records spanning medical, work, travel, and biometric data about each and every one of us being held at the fingertips of authorities and state bureaucrats.”
backbone /'bækbəʊn/ n.脊柱;支柱，基礎;骨氣
apartheid /ə'pɑrtaɪt/ u.n. 種族隔離制
be incompatible with 與…不相容，不符
at the fingertips of sb /at one’s fingertips (尤指信息)近在手邊的，唾手可得的
But despite the opposition, such schemes are gaining support. The owner of Pimlico Plumbers, based in London, intends to require workers to have been vaccinated before they are sent on jobs, while Unilever hopes to “encourage” all of its employees to take up the vaccine. Qantas has said it may require vaccinations for those flying, while some Australian employers could legally order their employees to be vaccinated.
背景資料：
據(jù)新加坡聯(lián)合早報2月1日消息，新冠疫苗自去年底開始接種后，不少國家計劃推出“疫苗護照”，讓接種疫苗的民眾可以跨境旅游，以拯救旅游業(yè)。但這種做法存在爭議，專家認為，疫苗的有效性和病毒的變化，依然是防控疫情的變量，若還未筑起免疫屏障，疫苗護照會讓病毒的傳播更加無跡可尋。
冰島日前已經(jīng)率先簽發(fā)了首批疫苗護照，為接種過新冠疫苗的冰島民眾發(fā)出供證明用的數(shù)字證書，方便持證者在歐洲旅行。不過，這一證書并未獲得國際認可。
有報道認為，比起讓持陰性證明的旅客通過“旅游泡泡”入境，疫苗護照似乎更具安全性，但世界衛(wèi)生組織曾在1月中公開反對疫苗護照。世衛(wèi)組織突發(fā)衛(wèi)生事件規(guī)劃執(zhí)行主任瑞安說：“目前這個階段，我們?nèi)匀徊恢澜臃N疫苗的人會否再將病毒傳染給別人。”
除了冰島，致力于推進疫苗護照的國家還有丹麥、希臘、西班牙、澳大利亞和泰國，它們希望通過這種方式促進旅游業(yè)和經(jīng)濟恢復。其中，泰國1月26日提出，讓接種疫苗的旅客入境后免除14天隔離，希望能達成在2021年吸引1000萬名旅客入境的目標。
來源: 中國生物技術網(wǎng)
