So, lets talk about covid passports a bit. I can see a couple ways these could be implemented. Either they are a general “I got vaccinated” paper or digital “passport” without any identifiable information and therefore not verifiable and not traceable, or they are digital via something like the blockchain where it can be verified and tracked. So then the question becomes, do we want to allow people to print and make fake copies of these paper or digital forms and hand them out to people who don’t want the vaccine, or do we want to be tracked everywhere we go (and still have some forgery)? 5 years from now, do you want someone to ask why you went to McDonald’s down the street when you said you were out of town? Why you went to a movie when you called into work? Do we want people to be able to track, and predict our movements through society? You may be thinking “since most people use credit cards, that’s already a thing” and while that’s partially true, the difference is the credit card data is mostly not public. A blockchain, would in theory, be public information. Also, there is choice when it comes to the credit card option. Someone can choose to use cash to pay for things and avoid being part of that credit card data.
If we do end up using a blockchain method that can be verified and tracked. Is it ethical to be vaccinated and use a shared passport so that it gets tainted with multiple people’s movements? How do you prevent people from doing that if it isn’t ethical? How do we prevent people from doing that who haven’t been vaccinated? I think we end up in a situation where we’re providing a record of all of our movements for very little benefit to us, probably a great benefit to the government and ad industry though.
Just something to think about. Are covid passports really something we want?
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