That danger could be lessened, she said, if Congress or state legislators pass new consumer protections. She pointed to software, unrelated to vaccines, that venues can use to scan driver’s licenses. “The scanning of your health information at the door of any business still worries me because generally we do not have a federal data privacy law,” said Alexis Hancock, EFF’s director of engineering. The idea that airlines or even local businesses could attempt to collect data from digital health cards remains a chief concern for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that advocates for privacy online and that criticized the health cards last June soon after California adopted them. “The Administration is not requiring residents to show proof of vaccination to enter any venue, but this tool will help residents who would like to access and produce a digital copy of their record,” his office said in a statement. Charlie Baker, a Republican, has pushed to keep the state system voluntary. A mandate in Boston is scheduled to take effect Saturday, even as Massachusetts Gov. require proof of vaccination to enter indoor businesses, and that list is growing slowly. He said he doesn’t know where the scanning is happening, because by design neither the health card’s creators nor the states have the ability to collect that data. The primary scanning app available, the SMART Health Card Verifier App, has been used about 750,000 times this month, and the trend line indicates usage is doubling month over month, Anderson said. He requires customers to have the QR code or, for now, their paper CDC card.ĭNA Lounge not only requires people to display the QR code, but it also scans the code using a smartphone app to verify that the codes are authentic - making the club one of the few businesses anywhere in the U.S. And that won’t happen until state or local governments mandate that,” said Jamie Zawinski, a software developer who also owns a night club, DNA Lounge, in San Francisco. “We won’t be safe until venues are able to *require* SMART Health QR codes and stop accepting paper cards, or photos of cards. Some of the most thorny political questions remain up in the air nationally, including: Should a business have the right to turn away someone without a vaccine QR code? Or in a pandemic, should a city or state even require businesses to turn people away, as in Canada? What about people who, for health reasons, can't get a vaccine? Each state maintains its own registry of vaccination records, so either the states or the health care providers need to be the ones to issue verified copies or credentials. One barrier to creating a truly national digital vaccine card is that there’s no federal database of vaccination records. “They’re turning to the states, they’re turning to VCI, and it’s a challenge for a state to conduct foreign diplomacy,” he said. People can get the QR code from their state health authority if they've been vaccinated in one of the 13 states now participating, but they may also be able to get them from a hospital or from a national pharmacy chain, such as Albertsons, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens or stores like Walmart if they've been vaccinated at any of their locations.Īnderson said other countries haven’t always known whom to speak with in the U.S. People can also download the QR code again if they lose it, adding a convenience factor. QR codes can't be forged in the way a paper card could be, because a restaurant or a music venue can use a scanner app to verify that it's legitimate. The digital card offers a few benefits beyond a paper card. “This is essentially the one common way for residents to secure that digital copy and then use it.” “This is a de facto standard,” said Rick Klau, California’s chief technology innovation officer. The fact that the system exists in any form is a triumph for a loose coalition of technologists, nonprofit groups and mostly Democratic states that championed the development of a digital vaccine card even before the first coronavirus shots were administered.
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