Bait & Switch: NHS COVID Tracking App to be Used for New Vaccine Passport

Despite repeated denials and obfuscations by various UK government ministers, it’s now become clear that Boris Johnson’s government has been planning for vaccine passports all along. In fact, it appears to be the end goal and fulcrum of all the supposed ‘mitigation’ policies which have been pushed on the public over the last 12 months.

Back in December of 2020, when Michael Gove was asked directly about whether there were any plans to introduce a new “vaccine passport” in order to restrict unvaccinated peoples’ access to places such as shops, supermarkets, pubs, venues, restaurants and for travel, the Cabinet Office minister flatly told the BBC, “That’s not the plan.”

Not quite a straight answer, but but most people took it on faith at the time. He was then asked a subsequent time, and again denied it, saying “no.”

In early February, after The Times reported that the government would be implementing COVID vaccine passports in time for summer, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi responded by categorically denying it.

Speaking to Sky News, he stated, “One, we don’t know the impact of the vaccines on transmission.”

“Two, it would be discriminatory and I think the right thing to do is to make sure that people come forward to be vaccinated because they want to rather than it be made in some way mandatory through a passport.”

Despite these and other public denials by politicians, today it has been revealed that the government’s NHS COVID Track & Trace App will be transitioned into the “digital certificate” which allows people to use their smart phone to prove they have received the experimental COVID vaccine, or have tested negative for coronavirus.

According to a new report in The Times, Downing Street is considering allowing businesses to demand to see a person’s vaccine passport before allowing them entry to a premises. This is allegedly “to ensure that staff or customers are at much lower risk of being infectious,” but one cannot ignore what a authoritarian tool of social and behavioural control this is.

When will your freedoms again be used as a bargaining tool to make you accept other vaccines? Once the system is in place, vaccine after vaccine could be added to the list of requirements to travel.

— Michael (@HegKong) January 18, 2021

As it turns out, it is Michael Gove himself who is leading the way in fast-tracking this new vaccine passport regime.

There should be little no doubt that the chief purpose of this new regime is to enforce corporativist vaccine compliance by threatening to withhold the most basic right and freedoms.

The Times story explains how the NHS App was conveniently positioned already for its seamless upgrade to serve as a vaccine passport:

It is understood that the government wants to give people the option of showing either vaccination status or test results to ensure that the scheme not does penalise those who cannot receive the vaccine for health reasons.

Health chiefs are looking at using the existing NHS app to offer an easy way for people to show that they have been vaccinated or recently tested. While the NHS contact tracing app is considered unsuitable because its design favours privacy, officials believe that the standard NHS appointment booking app would be relatively straightforward to use.

The app already allows people to see their medical records — including Covid-19 vaccinations — and test results are shared with the GP databases it uses, making it feasible to upload and access them quickly.

Government health officials appear to be using conciliatory language to make it appear as if there is ‘still a chance’ of not approving it, claiming they are dutifully considering a “mix of ethical and clinical questions” that need to be reviewed by the likes of Gove, but this is clearly not their main concern. For the government, the primary focus is a technocratic one – how to operationalise this new locus of control, like whether users will be able ‘input and verify’ the results of a new COVID ‘lateral flow’ test carried out from home, or whether their digital verification can be made immutable.

"In July 2020 a group of philosophy and law academics presented evidence to Parliament proposing that individuals should undergo vaccination as a condition of release from pandemic-related restrictions on liberty, including on movement and association."https://t.co/RDwuz7tHtY

— Robert Miller (@prisoner1968) February 24, 2021

Government is claiming to be giving serious consideration to what they innocuously call the ‘broader issues,’ ie. fundamental constitutional rights issues and civil liberties – like whether people could be denied access to purchasing food, getting medical care, in-person education, or even being allowed to work unless they can prove their Covid-19 testing or vaccine status. That is beside the question of whether this new medical martial law regime they are proposing will also be used to refused entry to theatres, gyms, sports, pubs, hotels, bus and train stations, and other public places.

When asked about this, Boris Johnson is hedging his answers, and not very convincingly at that, half-heartedly admitting that, “the fervent libertarians will reject [the app] but other people will think there’s a case for it”, and reassured the media that Gove would somehow be “getting the best scientific, moral, philosophical and ethical viewpoints on it and will work out a way forward.”

In other words: ‘trust us, we’ll let you know what we think is best, and get back to you after we’ve decided to roll-out the plan.’

According to The Times,the wheels are already in motion:

The review will report before the June 21 date pencilled in for a full reopening of the economy and Johnson said yesterday: “There are deep and complex issues that we need to explore, and ethical issues about what the role is for government in mandating or for people to have such a thing or indeed in banning from people doing such a thing. We can’t be discriminatory against people who for whatever reason can’t have the vaccine.”

However, Number 10 believes that including test results would get round this problem and requiring a recent negative result would be another way of showing that someone is at much lower risk of passing on the virus if allowed to a festival or other crowded place. Neither that nor vaccination is regarded as 100 per cent proof that someone cannot be infectious.

In November the head of Test and Trace, Baroness Harding of Winscombe, said that she was “working very closely with the vaccine team to make sure that as we build tools that will enable people to be testing themselves at home . . . we build an integrated data architecture so that you have the opportunity in the future to be able to have a single record as a citizen of your test results and whether you’ve been vaccinated”.

The plan also includes incorporating facial recognition:

The NHS app uses facial verification technology developed by iProov, a company that was given a £75,000 grant by the arms-length government agency InnovateUK to look into vaccine passports.

Speaking to The Times before the government’s review of Covid-19 status certification was announced, Andrew Bud, iProov’s chief executive, said that the department of health and social care had a “pivotal role” to play in deciding whether it was willing to allow its existing databases to be used to develop vaccine certificates.