GOP opposed to vaccine passport efforts
Debate centers on personal freedom, health privacy
HARRISBURG, Pa. – Vaccine passports being developed to verify COVID-19 immunization status and allow inoculated people to more freely travel, shop and dine have become the latest flashpoint in America’s perpetual political wars, with Republicans portraying them as a heavy-handed intrusion into personal freedom and private health choices.
They exist in only one state – a limited government partnership in New York with a private company – but that hasn’t stopped GOP lawmakers in a handful of states from rushing out legislative proposals to ban their use.
The argument over whether passports are a sensible response to the pandemic or governmental overreach echoes the bitter disputes over the past year about masks, shutdown orders and even the vaccines.
Vaccine passports are typically an app with a code that verifies whether someone has been vaccinated or recently tested negative for the coronavirus.
They are in use in Israel and under development in parts of Europe, seen as a way to safely help rebuild the pandemic-devastated travel industry.
They are intended to allow businesses to more safely open as the vaccine drive gains momentum, and they mirror measures already in place for schools and overseas travel that require proof of immunization against various diseases.
But lawmakers across the country are taking a stand against the idea. GOP senators in Pennsylvania are drawing up legislation that would prohibit vac
cine passports, also known as health certificates or travel passes, from being used to bar people from routine activities.
“We have constitutional rights and health privacy laws for a reason,” said Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, a Republican. “They should not cease to exist in a time of crisis. These passports may start with COVID-19, but where will they end?”
Benninghoff said last week his concern was “using taxpayer money to generate a system that will now be, possibly, in the hands of mega-tech organizations who’ve already had problems with getting hacked and security issues.”
A Democratic colleague, Rep. Chris Rabb of Philadelphia, sees value in vaccine passports if they are implemented carefully.
“There’s a role for using technology and other means to confirm people’s statuses,” Rabb said. “But we do have concerns around privacy, surveillance and inequitable access.”
Republican Florida Gov. Ron Desantis on Friday issued an executive order that said no governmental entity can issue a vaccine passport, and businesses in that state can’t require them. He said he expected the Legislature to pass a similar law.
His order said requiring “COVID-19 vaccine passports for taking part in everyday life – such as attending a sporting event, patronizing a restaurant, or going to a movie theater – would create two classes of citizens.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has largely taken a hands-off approach on vaccine passports. At a news conference last week, Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said he considered them a project for the private sector, not the government.
He said the government is considering federal guidelines to steer the process
surrounding vaccine passports. Among its concerns: Not everyone who would need a passport has a smartphone; passports should be free and in multiple languages; and private health information must be protected.
Freshman U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-georgia, told her supporters on Facebook last week that “something called a vaccine passport” was a form of
“corporate communism” and part of a Democratic effort to control people’s lives.
And a GOP lawmaker in Louisiana has teed up a bill to keep the state from including any vaccination information on the Louisiana driver’s license or to make issuance of a driver’s license subject to vaccine status.
In New York, a government-sponsored vaccine passport called the Excelsior Pass is being introduced. A smartphone app, it shows whether someone has been vaccinated or recently tested negative for COVID-19.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo touted the idea as letting an event venue usher, for example, use their own smartphone to scan a concertgoer’s code.
New York officials have not released specific details about how the app will work, access someone’s vaccination or testing status or protect a user’s name, date of birth or the location where their code was scanned. The app’s privacy policy said data will be “maintained in a secure manner” and won’t be used for sales or marketing purposes or shared with a third party. But some privacy experts said the public needs more specifics to ensure its information is protected.
Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project at the Urban Justice Center, a New York–based civil rights and privacy group, warned the Excelsior Pass creates a new layer of surveillance without sufficient details about how it collects data or protects privacy.
“We basically only have screenshots of the user interface and not much more,” Cahn said of Excelsior Pass.