Soon a global vaccine pass? The WHO invokes the health pretext and advances its pawns
“Countries will only emerge from the pandemic together”
The idea is simple: standardize vaccine certification systems around the world. In France, it is the vaccination pass, and if it has another name elsewhere, the system remains the same. Moreover, the European Union has already planned to standardize all this by integrating the vaccination pass into the European digital passport.
But after all, why not go to the next step directly?
Garrett Mehl, Head of Unit in the Department of Digital Health and Innovation at WHO, said:COVID-19 affects everyone. Countries will therefore only emerge from the pandemic together. Tamper-proof, digitally verifiable vaccination certificates build trust. WHO is therefore supporting Member States to establish trusted networks and verification technologies at national and regional levels.»
Obviously, for such pooling, some rules are necessary.
An open source code on Github
Wherever they have been implemented, these digital control systems have systematically raised many questions relating to the security of personal data.
There, the World Health Organization takes the lead and ensures that it emphasizes “on transparency and data protection during the construction of the gateway“. The software development codes are public and accessible on the Github platform.
In addition, the institution ensures that its program complies with the European legislation in force, in particular with regard to the GDPR. However, if the program is extended globally, the law will not apply in the same way everywhere. Take, for example, the “Cloud Act, signed into law on March 23, 2018, which allows American law enforcement or intelligence agencies to obtain information stored on their servers, whether these servers are in the United States or abroad. Given the number of American companies established abroad (Microsoft to name but one), there is reason to doubt real data security. Especially since the United States has always been the most important WHO financial source.
Still, the institution provides ” a common security audit with penetration tests ” to secure the program, while indicating that the latter “will interact with other parts of the system already developed“.
The WHO wants a global vaccine pass, Deutsche Telekom on board: https://t.co/G2tdkq76Zk
— Le Virus Info & Pirates Mag’ & Les Puces Info (@ACBM_COM) February 23, 2022
A partnership with T’Systems, familiar ground
Unsurprisingly, it is with the German company T’Systems that the international organization will work for this program. They are also the ones who work on the European digital certificates, as well as on the “European Federation Gateway Service“. Of course, they are also behind the German government’s own tracing application, which has many additional functions, such as event verification or universal certificate storage. A real Swiss army knife anti-Covid-19, which is not without frightening the recalcitrant to digital.
Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of T-Systems, welcomed this contract, not without hinting at a more pecuniary than health interest: “Covid-19 has a grip on the world, and it is digitization that is making this world go round. Digital vaccination certificates like those in the EU are the key. We are pleased to be able to support the WHO in its fight against the pandemic, as healthcare is a strategic growth area for T-Systems.»
