“We need guidance from the federal government,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers. Unnoticed, rapid implementation can lead to a jumble of systems that do not talk to each other.
The White House says the government may not issue the referents or store the data. But discussions have taken place with technology companies about how a passport system can work and the question is asked whether pharmacies and other institutions can provide the necessary information. The Department of Health and Human Services also requested input from 25 federal agencies on the passports, including if they would encourage their own employees to use them, according to sources familiar with the talks. HHS’s national health technology office declined to comment.
“The right way is that it should be private, that the data should be secure, that access to it should be free, that it should be digital and on paper, and in several languages, and that it should be open source,” he said. White House Covid said. Ady Andy Slavitt, said yesterday.
The passports are discussed early in the pandemic, when antibody tests and associated programs are offered as a tool to reopen the economy. But businesses are reviving the field with vaccinations increasing and travel increasing: A coalition of aviation and travel groups called for a federal standard this month, saying passports will not only accelerate recovery but also extend testing and vaccinations while the spread of diseases is limited.
“There is a role for the US government to set standards,” especially to ensure that credentials are ‘interoperable’, or to speak effectively with other systems across borders, said Tori Barnes, executive vice president of public affairs. affairs and policy at the American Travel Association, said.
However, there are legal and ethical questions about whether the passports can widen inequalities that have already become a worrying feature of the pandemic.
Public health experts and bioethicists say digital enrollment can discriminate against disadvantaged populations. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, argues that the use of smartphone-based authentication to gain access to public places will create a two-tier system that excludes people who cannot work, shop or go to school because they do not have a cell phone. or access to testing.
Beyond the ethical considerations, the separate question is whether the fragile U.S. healthcare technology infrastructure can withstand an avalanche of new programs utilizing the vaccine data.
Data classes containing immunization records vary in quality from state to state and may not be able to handle a surge of real-time vaccination status queries, said Deanne Kasim, executive director of Change Healthcare, which is part of a consortium including Microsoft and Salesforce. . working on standards and technology for passports. Her company advocates for a ‘lighter lift’ and a partnership with pharmacies, which have more robust record-keeping systems.
There are also privacy considerations. If people are required to store test and vaccination results in digital format, they may be exposed to the kind of data breaches that increased during the pandemic. “We wanted the data to be on the patient’s phone” as opposed to a database, where individuals could control the data, Kasim said.
Attempts to create passports could also hamper legal barriers, said Rebecca Coyle, executive director of the American Immunization Registry Association. Privacy laws restrict the kind of data that some registers can share. Technical interests have asked the HHS national health technology coordinator to issue national guidance so that “different solutions return the same information,” Coyle said.
Some states are working on intentions and regulating the still-emerging field, Kasim said. Several legislators, for example, have introduced bills to prevent people with religious objections or health conditions from preventing discrimination that could prevent them from being vaccinated.
The passport debate is also engulfing Europe, where governments are trying to reconcile the promise of free movement with privacy issues. The European Union is studying a ‘digital green certificate’ with which the 27 member states can reopen their journey and slow down the spread of the virus.
A World Health Organization group warns that strict privacy and protection against discrimination is a necessity. “Immunity certification, even where it is available and reliable, should never be used as the main strategy to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic,” he concluded.
Erin Banco reported.