13901

Because these days you must overcomplicate things. I've been beating that drum for a while (I know of people who are vaccinators and got their yellow book stamped with C-19 vaccines too) but it has to be an app. Doesn't matter if it takes longer, it's potentially risky for privacy, opens up the chance of mass hacking and is 110% going to cost more.

It-has-to-be-an-app.

slicktony

Almost word for word what my wife just said to me. I had never guessed 13901 was her alias...

I do understand the concern, I really do. But I suppose the way I look at it is this: the NHS is providing you with an incredibly powerful tool. It makes health records and services more readily available to people who otherwise will not use them, including, when it is legal to travel, the ability to demonstrate to authorities that you are vaccinated against a deadly disease. Isn't that just a fabulous thing?

13901

Great minds and all that!

I think that digitalising the public administration is great. Being a dual national residing in a third country gives me a triple-whammy of bureaucracies and I have to say that in the last few years the increase in digital services has been a blessing, even more so now that Italy is also allowing e-ID cards (and all the related services) to residents abroad... So the more online services, the better.

What I object to is digitalisation for the sake of digitalising things. It's a problem I keep on finding in my work career: in some instances creating an app, or a program is just not needed. The NHS wants to provide digital records to their "clients"? Awesome I say. But from there to implementing a world-wide system of apps and databases to show a Covid vaccination, accessible by a Border agent in London, Tokyo, Buenos Aires and N'Djamena is a big step. Especially when the alternative, the good old certificat jaune, is in use and respected for arguably worse illnesses (yellow fever mightn't be as spreadable but it sure is deadlier).

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox.

warakorn

All it needs is a party (who is allowed to vaccinate) to use up a vaccine (but not inoculating it), write down its serial number and putting that serial number into the system. The patient (who doesn't want to be vaccinated, but who wants to travel/party) pays a good amount of money - and voila!!!! The new vaccination app is practically worthless.

All it needs is for some doctors in the Southeast of the EU, which are willing to game the system.
The mob behind it is sitting in Calabria, Moldova or Ukraine. All they need is some access to to the system.

DYKWIA

How exactly would somebody put "the serial number into the system"? This is done via the surgery, not by the person being vaccinated.

DYKWIA

I'm now in the App. However, I only have the basic info rather than the Detailed Coded version.

I don't have the option to request access via the app, so I contacted my surgery via the alternative AskMyGP app and asked them to do it (it actually says to do this in the NHS App). The surgery practice manager replied saying I had to request access via the NHS App...

I give in, and resign myself to never leaving the country again

paulaf

Call the surgery again, I had the go around a couple of times until I told them the App says to contact your surgery, finally got access, I thought maybe it was the first request my surgery had received so they didn't know what I was talking about?

corporate-wage-slave

It's just infeasible. For starters the processing is like a factory, I don't do clinical assessments, but I do the vaccination, I am watched by 3 people and 7 cameras. The form I sign off goes to a separate team, which reconciles batch numbers, vial and NHS numbers, then updates the system, it then goes off to the GP surgery for verification. We even record which arm and muscle the vaccine goes into, but I'm not the one recording that. Any data entry has the finger prints of the person doing the work. I am incorruptible, most of the other vaccinators are millionaires (at least in pension terms) being retired GPs. Those idiots that don't want the jabs are fortunately few in number, aren't exactly the travelling sort and certainly not rich enough to bribe very affluent people. Now is it possible for one person, somewhere, to find a way through it? Well nothing is foolproof but this is pretty darn close. It's probably more secure than a passport.

IAN-UK

I know have access to NHS services through four website/Apps. There's PatientAccess, my GP's practice's own site, some other one i never used, and now this. All three active ones operate at more or less the same level of functionality, all three will record my Covid jab. The GP version has the edge, with a good messaging service.

Oh, and of course I've got the NHS Covid app.

warakorn

The vaccine is supposed to also be administered by small GP clinics all across the EU. All it takes is some bad apples in the Southest EU.

13901

There's already news of an Oxford councillor who got the jab by queue jumping; the King of Spain's daughters got it when they visited him in his 'tax exile' in Abu Dhabi and I'm told by friends in BA that they've seen a lot of fake Covid tests, one of the reasons why they're trialling that app they've been launching with AA... And let's not even go into Hankie giving a contract over Whatsapp to his pub landlord..

It's not just those pesky people in SE EU, you know.

DYKWIA

This is a UK specific forum and thread.

warakorn

Well, the title of this thread is:

Surely, I don't think "international travel" just relates to travel between the UK and Ireland.
If we just talking about an Island-solution (only UK) then what is such a solution good for international travel (e.g. to Spain)?

Yeah, I might be spoiling the party, but a global (or even Europe-wide) digital vaccine passport is nothing more than a dream - a dream for gangsters to seriously make money off this Pandemic.
Be aware there are enough "rich" people who want to travel, but don't want to get vaccinated.

You can buy such fake test results also off the street in Moscow and Kiev, as well.

Silver Fox

I say! Would you mind awfully, checking outside and seeing if there any black helicopters circling above? There's a good chap!

Be careful of 5G masts though!

DaveS

As I see it, you have the choice whether to install an app from developers that do not have a particularly inspiring history of writing (#worldbeating) apps, then granting it access to your most personal and arguably useful/valuable data. Do you 100% need to do that in order to carry on your life and on a handheld device? If not, why take the risk until you have to?