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; 拥有者

　　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 英国国家医疗服务体系

　　grant v.(尤指正式地或法律上)同意，准予，允许 grant sth to sb./sth. | grant sb. sth.

　　biometric identifier 生物识别码

　　“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. 设想

　　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 英国卫生和社会保障部

　　hospitalisation /ˌhɒspɪtəlaɪˈzeɪʃn/ n. 住院,住院治疗

　　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(继 Microsoft 后全球第二大软件公司)

　　the Mayo Clinic 美国梅奥医学中心

　　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 订立合同把 (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，基础;骨气

　　apartheid /ə'pɑrtaɪt/ u.n. 种族隔离制

　　be incompatible with 与…不相容，不符

　　at the fingertips of sb /at one’s fingertips (尤指信息)近在手边的，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.

　　背景资料：

　　据新加坡联合早报2月1日消息，新冠疫苗自去年底开始接种后，不少国家计划推出“疫苗护照”，让接种疫苗的民众可以跨境旅游，以拯救旅游业。但这种做法存在争议，专家认为，疫苗的有效性和病毒的变化，依然是防控疫情的变量，若还未筑起免疫屏障，疫苗护照会让病毒的传播更加无迹可寻。

　　冰岛日前已经率先签发了首批疫苗护照，为接种过新冠疫苗的冰岛民众发出供证明用的数字证书，方便持证者在欧洲旅行。不过，这一证书并未获得国际认可。

　　有报道认为，比起让持阴性证明的旅客通过“旅游泡泡”入境，疫苗护照似乎更具安全性，但世界卫生组织曾在1月中公开反对疫苗护照。世卫组织突发卫生事件规划执行主任瑞安说：“目前这个阶段，我们仍然不知道接种疫苗的人会否再将病毒传染给别人。”

　　除了冰岛，致力于推进疫苗护照的国家还有丹麦、希腊、西班牙、澳大利亚和泰国，它们希望通过这种方式促进旅游业和经济恢复。其中，泰国1月26日提出，让接种疫苗的旅客入境后免除14天隔离，希望能达成在2021年吸引1000万名旅客入境的目标。

　　来源: 中国生物技术网