the810

But how? How can you use it for the surveillance? It doesn't contain any other data than what is already printed on the passport itself and certainly not anything that could help track you. The chip is merely a storage medium, which allows data to be stored in digital form, with appropriate certificates, thus making the passport more trustworthy.

GUWonder

Not easily as the passport chips are usually protected to a large extent by a de facto Faraday cage effect, but traceability attacks on them have already worked.

Worrying about the passports' RFIDs is overboard compared to the much more easily done traceability attacks and other surveillance applicable to whatever electronic devices we are using to participate on FT.

These "immunity passports" people have in mind in parts may have a smartphone aspect.

lobo411

Canada, France, Germany "aren't sure" about the idea because they all flubbed their vaccination programs and/or are hotbeds of anti-vaxxer sentiment. Vaccination passports would disadvantage their own citizens in the short term, while aiding their vaccination programs in the long term by giving vaccine hesitant people a concrete reason to get the shot.

The US isn't in that situation. We'll be the first major nation fully vaccinated. Vaccination passports would be a boon for our overseas travelers, while aiding our domestic economy by encouraging foreign travelers to visit.

GUWonder

At least in Q1 2021, the US public has been very fragmented over what to do with "immunity passports" and giving privileges for those that would perhaps get them. Not only is there a substantial anti-vaxxer sentiment in the US historically and still to present, there are also people who prefer that it not be done by the government, especially not by the federal government.

Here's one window into this kind of dynamic: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....26.21250184v1

Barciur

This has been brought up in another thread, but I am still curious to see how exactly one could prove they got vaccinated if every vaccine and information is not going into the CDC database and you're in a state that does not have a registry? All you get is a CDC card which one could print out and fill out in a matter of 2 minutes. Have we solved this issue yet for issuing some sort of an "immunization passport" in this country?

lobo411

Ya I don't expect there to be vaccine passports used for Americans to live their daily lives, as there are in Israel. The US is simply too large for it to be practical.

The Biden order for a feasibility study, though, makes it pretty clear that the intention is to revive the tourism industry by enabling foreigners to visit the US.

So I think the US will, eventually, impose some kind of requirement. Either proof of vaccination and you're on your merry way an hour after landing in the US. Or testing and quarantine at your own expense. Most people are just going to do proof of vaccination.

GUWonder

International travel to the US can be re-opened even without an "immunity passport" requirement being put in place by the US for travel to the US. Even if the US were to decide to go with an "immunity passport" requirement to fly to the US, for how long would such a requirement be in place for Covid-19?

Not been solved in the US. But I'm coming to this from the perspective from which the US still hasn't gotten around to have all US state-issued DLs accepted for conversion in Germany and yet all US state DLs generally still get accepted for use in Germany even when the DLs are issued by US states whose DLs are not accepted for conversion in Germany.

seigex

The fact that it has a digital unique id that's maintained in a multitude of systems that is tracked every time it is scanned and a single scan of the passport with an RFID reader can give any who has access to the system a full history of every port of entry you crossed, versus the old passports before they were e-passports that weren't tracked outside of stamps.

My overall point was, it's pointless to be concerned about a "immunization passport" when you have a real passport that has to be presented alongside it that has much more "tracking" implication.

Legally though, there might be a HIPAA issue with being forced to carry a immunization passport as you are being forced to expose personal health history, but that's a fight for the supreme court.

the810

This is a much bigger concern for me. Normalising the concept of pretty much anyone (it's not just about borders) requiring an access to your medical information is a dangerous idea.

i0wnj00

Sure, and you can even request an FOIA from Customs and Border Protection and get this information from them.
They will give you the name, date of transaction, type of document used, and Port of Entry.
I can't vouch for other countries but the CBP will do it for you.

At least for the US Passport, there are specific steps the officer must do to activate the RFID chip, which contains the same information found on the bio and MRZ and a picture (jpeg) of you.
Trusted traveler cards issued by CBP (and maybe the Passport card) are read from both the MRZ and the RFID chip with antennas posted 2ft away from the driver side of motor vehicles. For the latter the antennas activate the RFID card. The documents themselves require physical possession for it to be of any use and then you will need a database to associate that document and form a travel history.

That's what was said about the Mexican IFE (credencial para votar).
You will only need your voter credential to vote in elections...promise.

Do you want to work?
Open a bank account?
Get a drivers license?
How about go into a bar?
Got to check in at the airport? Hotel?
Can you prove Mexican citizenship?

What's the first thing that will be asked of you, if you are a Mexican citizen?
Left it at home? Lost it? You're f'd..

The only I'm not a big fan of the vaccine/immunity passport is that it suddenly finds other uses, other than what it was originally intended to.

Doppy

As an overall comment, I would say that I've had a WHO yellow card for 10-15 years now and don't feel like it has been any threat to my privacy or led to a slippery slope that ended up with the FBI is reading my sexts. It's not clear to me why doing the same for COVID (ideally in a more secure manner) creates a new category of harms or threats to privacy beyond one's vaccination status.

Inbound international travel could be opened, but it would be safer/easier if we required vaccinations and/or did things like waiving quarantine requirements for vaccinated people. For that to work, you would need some proof of vaccination and/or proof of negative COVID test. The current system is pretty close to an honor system for test results; they're not that hard to fake.

It will be at least another year before the rest of the world is widely vaccinated, and the potential for variants to develop and spread could mean that COVID becomes endemic and regular booster shots are needed. Just because the US is only ~3 months away from the point where any adult who wants a vaccine can get one, it doesn't mean the rest of the world is there, nor does it mean that it's necessarily a good idea to let unvaccinated/untested people in. We should plan for a long haul, and then if it turns out to be a short haul, we can celebrate that.

HIPAA applies to health care providers, not to individuals' own information about themselves. You're free to disclose any medical information about yourself that you want to anyone at any time.

We already have a lot of vaccine disclosures required for various things, like going to schools/universities in many states.

There are already a lot of countries that require certain vaccinations for entry, and that hasn't created a slippery slope where you need to turn over your latest colonoscopy video to get a starbucks. "Yellow cards" date back to the 1930s.

In the US we already have a default national ID, it's called a social security number. It has a million unintended uses as identification, and comes with zero security features, imposing huge costs on people in the form of identity theft. Rather than pretending it doesn't exist, we should replace this lousy system which with one that is secure, reliable, and free, and where we have an upfront conversation (and legislation) about where it can and cannot be used.

StingWest

Certainly hope so! My concern with the anti-vaxxers is not about their (mostly irrational) reluctance to give in to a government mandate, but more that if there are too many of them, Covid will never be tamed.

lobo411

I'm hoping FOMO proves to be stronger than Anti-vaxxerism!

invisible

Classical case of above from where I currently live:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ingapore-says/

carmine10

Yeah interesting but they have a political regime that allows them to do that...we cannot I guess