Majority back vaccine passports despite privacy fears, study finds

VACCINE passports are supported by a majority of the public despite potentially “dystopian” consequences, a major study has found. Two polls conducted in April found that between 51 and 70 per cent of people were likely to support these passports.

Only between 11 and 20 per cent of people were strongly opposed to the concept. However, despite the lack of a united front against immunity passports from the British public, the researchers said that such a division in society between the vaccine “haves and have nots” could have dystopian repercussions. The potential solution to

Covid travel restrictions is being considered by the European Union and some commercial airlines. Maroš Sefčovič, a European Commission vicepresident, has said: “There will be different options how we handle travel ... the possibility of the electronic vaccination certificate could be added,” he said.

The research, published in the PLOS One journal, surveyed people during the height of the first wave of the coronavirus lockdown in April. Prof Stephan Lewandowsky, the study author, said: “As a follow-up, it would be beneficial to know whether people have relaxed their privacy attitudes as an exception due to the emergency situation or if our findings show a wider acceptance of privacy-encroaching technologies – for example, continuous monitoring of your power consumption at home or tracking of location by law enforcement authorities.”

Yesterday, The Telegraph revealed that government funding for at least eight different vaccine passport schemes had been agreed, totalling £450,000. Transparency documents from Innovate UK showed that grants had been allocated to companies developing technology where users can prove digitally that they have received a Covid-19 vaccine.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We have no plans to introduce immunity passports following this vaccination programme.

“As with other vaccination programmes, a vaccine record card will be issued to patients with the relevant details about the vaccine including the date of their vaccination and their vaccine type. This is not an immunity passport and will not be used as a form of identification.”