Will you regret the switch to Digital Immunity Passports? Concerning technology governance and ethics issues revealed.

For a lot of countries, dealing with the Covid-19 scandal has meant halting some or all international travel. However, with the world getting ready to open up for global trade and travel during these times, the driving forces behind the Covid response say we will need a way to verify the Covid-19 status of travelers in order to travel again. 

Introduction of Digital Passports – An Uncharted Era

The Australian Immigration Minister, Alan Tudge, recently announced plans for the country to implement a new digital system to collect traveler information, and it will include the upload of COVID 19 vaccination certificates. In the UK, tests are going on for a new digital health passport called the CommonPass. The CommonPass platform is run by the Commons project, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and backed by the World Economic Forum and a coalition of about 350 public and private bodies. They call it a “trusted, globally-interoperable platform for people to document their COVID-19 status including health declarations, PCR tests and vaccinations, to satisfy country entry requirements, while protecting their health data privacy”.

With the introduction of platforms like these, the world is gradually moving into uncharted territory. As with all new technology solutions to social challenges, concerns abound. These include but are not limited to the commercialization of private health data, undue government control, surveillance, authoritarianism, and ethics issues.

Taking a Different Design Approach

While these concerns are important to consider, especially when you look at it as a direct equivalent of the paper version - the yellow fever certificate, for instance, governments and policymakers need to analyze these systems from a different point of view. They need to "find the pre-digital metaphor," says Charles Radclyffe, an AI ethics and governance expert. 

Finding a pre-digital metaphor in this context would involve asking questions such as "Who is holding the data?", "How is someone being asked for the data?", "Where is the data being stored, and when is it being accessed?" in a non-digital manner. If they can defend and support the answers provided to these questions, then the design choice made is justifiable. If not, then there is a need to go back to the drawing board and rethink these design choices according to Charles.

User Data – Who will own and control it?

The question of who will own and control the data on this kind of platform ultimately depends on the design choice. "I will encourage people trying to design these systems to look at trying to mirror as much as possible what we are used to with a paper-based system whereby ownership and control of the data are with the individual," Charles says. 

When designing these systems, the user should have the ability to hand over the data and know who is viewing it. A suitable design choice would involve storing the user data at a national level where the control over the data will lie in the same jurisdiction in which the user has legal power.

Data Privacy Policies and What Could Go Wrong.

Even with these precautions in place to ensure data sovereignty, other data challenges arise with these platforms. Aside from the fact that people will be coerced into using the mandatory health passport, giving away their private medical data following taking a mandatory Covid19 vaccination – “no jab no travel”, the privacy policies of these platforms will be lengthy and hard to read. In situations whereby the user has to download the app, for example, at the airport before departure, it is almost impossible for them to cover all blocks of text and properly digest the information within. Therefore, in this situation, the "first thing that could go wrong is people are giving consent to their data being used without really giving their consent in a truly informed way," Charles says.

As mentioned earlier, there are concerns about the commercialization of user data. The current business model for data, in general, is ceding access to insights about people and using them to enrich other data sources. Therefore, even though there's very little likelihood of the actual sale of user data because of the current business model for data, there is a tendency for data to be misused if the group responsible for managing the platform decides to grant access to other organizations. However, if the use of user data is limited only within the digital passport scenario, the tendency for exploitation is negligible according to Charles. 

Therefore a thorough examination of the privacy policies of these organizations handling a digital identity platform is necessary to flag any issues and provide transparency as to how they intend to use user data.

Global IDs – The Danger of Concentrating Power in One Platform.

A digital immunity passport such as one provided by CommonPass can grant access to the ability to travel and possibly the ability to access services at the domestic level when fully implemented. Managing a platform that provides these services would demand a lot of responsibility as well as confer a colossal amount of power in the hands of the organization in control according to Charles. 

"that is the very reason why this [a global id] is a bad outcome."

This concentration of power in the hands of one organization is quite problematic. In Charles's words, "that is the very reason why this [a global id] is a bad outcome." "What we cannot allow is for an organization to be too big to fail," he says. A better solution would be to implement a system that works at a national level.

A system implemented at a national level might not provide the economies of scale achievable with a global one, but it provides resiliency. By making use of international standards, countries can agree on "what data to collect, it is to be shared and how it is to be accessed," Charles says. It will also be easier to manage the system and handle stakeholder feedback, which is an important part of the process for such radical systems. 

A Digital Health Passport – Is it really necessary?

Developing a digital ID system like a digital health passport at a national level would have to be done with the best interests of the general public at large. Currently, thousands of health scientists, including leaders from Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford Universities, have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposes the extreme lockdown measures being taken by most governments. The argument is based on a scientific approach to the situation – founded on established science as opposed to the goal post shifting and morphing narratives by those driving the Covid response.

Failing to engage with stakeholders, will cause a situation to arise where people will refuse to use them and try to bypass the system in place because they believe their rights and freedom to travel as they used to is being infringed upon according to Charles. Consequently, governments need to provide good governance and adequate stakeholder engagement through a feedback channel that allows users to raise concerns as they arise.

For global platforms such as CommonPass, the need for an efficient feedback process is even more important. However there has been little or no stakeholder engagement and nothing has been done to mitigate the level of distrust in these systems other than censoring the opposition, which includes some of the world’s most senior virologists and infectious disease scientists. The key question yet to be debated is: Are digital immunity passports even needed? 

The Commons Project website says “Building tools that empower individuals to take control of the use of their data begins for us in public health”   If digital health passports are mandated along with covid vaccination as suggested by the Australian government, how exactly are individuals empowered? At the very core, platforms like this restrict individual freedoms and hand over a great deal of power to governments. The websites of ID2020 and Commonpass both use terms such as “social opportunity, inclusion, empowerment”. This tells us something about their politics and at the same time exposes the fact that these organisations are flaunting social justice buzz words which blatantly contradict their true intentions.

To many people the concept of a digital health and immunity passport seems like a good idea in exchange for freedom to travel again, however, much thought and open debate must be put into this before even making the decision to go ahead with such radical changes. 

Using Covid as an opportunity, Governments are being lobbied by the World Economic Forum and its global partners. Digital and biometric data systems are a feature of the Great Reset agenda and fourth industrial revolution as quoted by the World Economic Forum Chairman, Klaus Schwab “The Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to a fusion of our physical, digital and biological identity”. When considering Digital Immunity passports, designing these systems would require an analysis of the pre-digital metaphor for it and eventually providing a justifiable model of the system based on that analysis. If governments proceed, ideally, the implementation of these systems should mirror the current system and be at a national level to ensure data sovereignty. Lastly, proper governance and provision of a working feedback loop will ensure that the system implemented is in the best interests of the people.

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Leo Clifford is the founder of the Telco Global Forum and Ramp Up Talent